Of all the careers John Wilmot – 2nd Earl of Rochester, ward to the King of England – had envisioned in his future, that of watchman had been pretty low on the list (somewhere between sin-eater, leech-collector and knocker-upper).178 Well, he felt like a right Charlie now.179

Periodically serving on the watch was something of a public duty. Of course, most well-to-do gentlemen would never have been seen dead in a greatcoat and rattle, preferring to pay a substitute to take their place.180 And that’s exactly what John had intended to do when the summons came. He was a poet, not a fighter, and effete fingers like his felt far better curled around a pen than a lantern and staff.

Except... his customary monthly allowance of £500181 gifted him by the King had, quite inexplicably, dried up. Why the King had forgotten to bankroll his account was quite beyond John’s understanding. It could have had absolutely nothing to do with the terribly witty verses he had recently passed about the court, comparing Charles’ nose to a particular purple fruit and complementing it as being far superior in length to his prick. The monarch, after all, was merry, and quite above such slights. And aubergines.

He’d tried to contact his guardian, of course... but to no avail. Court, of late, had not been in session, his entrance to the palace barred. The King apparently had more important things to attend to than his ward.

Such as the plague.

Perhaps he really had just forgotten?

And so, not for the first time, John had found himself out of pocket, and in need of common employment. Fortunately, said epidemic had provided ample opportunities.

As a watchman.

While most all professions had vanished like smoke before the furious tempest of this most virulent of scourges, three remained, two of which had flourished.

The first, that of baker, was considered an essential service by order of the Lord Mayor. Prices and weight were set, and the bakers ordered to ensure their ovens were running around the clock: the authorities well knew that the only thing worse than an outbreak of pox was inflation, and few things were nearer to an Englishman’s heart than the price of his favourite loaf.

The second, was that of the aforementioned watchman. For every household where infection was suspected, the doors and windows were shut fast and chained, and a ruddy red cross daubed. A watchman was assigned to each shut-in to ensure the residents did not attempt to escape their fate, but also to fetch them food and other necessities: an odd hybrid of jailor and manservant. The ranks of the watch had swollen a hundredfold in little over a month. Entry requirements were suddenly shelved – they’d take anyone now (even an aristocratic wastrel like John)! Indeed, it was a way for the city to grant useful employ to those many thousands who had lost their means, but were too poor to escape to the countryside. The only other thing worse than an outbreak of both pox and inflation was an angry mob (riddled with both pox and an inflated sense of self-worth to boot)!182

The third, was–

“Oi! Wilmot!”

John sighed and turned from his default state of surveying the eerily empty streets. Goodwife Titsworth was leering at him again from the crack in the window boarding.

“Yes?” he asked testily.

“No need to take that attitude with me, young man!” she scowled, “Who d’ya think y’are? The bloody Earl of Worcester?”

“Rochester.”

“The sauce!”

“How’s your husband?”

“Still alive, more’s the pity! Here–” she pressed herself against the crack – first her cheek, then her bosoms, then her cheek again. Apparently, she thought this was winsome. “I’m ’ungry!”

“You’ve had your bread delivery already today.”

“Bread bread bread! The good book says man cannot live on bread alone, don’tcha know? And I’m more than a man. I’m a woman! I ‘as needs!”

“What do you want?”

“I’ve ha hankering for ha good fish pie!”

“No-one’s selling fish right now.”

“You ’aven’t even looked!”

John sighed. “I know what will happen if I leave on another of your wild goose chases. You’ll just try to escape like the last time.”

She attempted a pout (surprisingly effective given her lack of teeth). “Aw, it’s true! I’m desperate for a breath of fresh air! It’s Fred’s sores – they do weep so! And he’s unwashed – ’as been for days! We all are! The air reeks somethin’ awful in here! Be a good lad – throw open the doors a few moments! I won’t even set foot outside – cross mi heart and hope to... well, maybe not that, but... Oh, go on!”

“Not a chance.”

She repeated the bosom press. “I’ll touch it!”

John weighed that for a moment: risking certain death to be jerked off by a toothless old hag married to a plague victim through a rough splinter-filled crack in the rusty-nailed boarding of a house marked with the red cross. Oddly tempting...

“Nah, that’s alright.”

“Ooh, you tease!”

John turned and raised a finger. “Shhh!”

“You shush!”

“What was that?”

“I don’t hear nuffin’!”

“There it was again!”

John drifted away from the doorway and the shrill protestations of the desperate housewife. He had thought he’d heard... music?

Of all the sounds he’d heard of late – mostly moaning, wailing, screaming, rhyming – the one he’d least expected was that which carried a melody... And there it was again!

As if in a dream, John followed his feet, and his feet followed his ears, his charge as watchman quite forgotten. The music was distant but distinct. The city was almost silent these days, thanks to the plague.

THE plague.

The article was definitively deserved. There had been outbreaks before, but nothing like this.

No-one was sure where it had started. Some believed it had spread up from the river, others that it had begun in the poorer boroughs of Southwark and St. Giles. Many blamed the Dutch, and suspected the Europeans had deliberately spread the pestilence, their latest atrocity in their ongoing war with England. Some recalled the brace of comets that had cut the skies before the calamity began, and believed the plague a punishment from God for their wickedness. Few ventured outside these days, yet the churches remained assiduously well attended on Sundays.

It was thought to be passed by touch, but then it was also said to be in the air; some even swore it would manifest spontaneously whenever one committed an immoral act (John could personally vouch for this NOT being so). Many took up chain smoking as a means to purify the air about them (not a problem for John as he was already a 20 pipe-a-dayer). The doctors, who had lately gotten the ridiculous notion into their lofty brows that smoking was somehow bad for you, preferred to wear beaky masks stuffed with sweet-smelling herbs (lavender mostly). Truly, they were a strange sight, those bird-headed men in their robes and hats: the carnival had come to London, and no-one was laughing.

Yet another rumour – that the plague was being spread by domestic pets – had resulted in the wholesale slaughter of every cat and dog the desperate populace could lay their sweaty paws on: another reason why the city was so damned quiet now.

The local rat population certainly seemed to have appreciated the gesture: their ranks had swelled considerably. The rats had nothing to fear from the plague: it only killed humans, apparently. Now, with the demise of their natural predators, they had nothing to fear at all! Damn rodents acted as if they owned the place! Time was they used to scatter when a body approached. Now, they would knot together into solid masses, stack one ’pon t’other, knitted shapes grown tall, almost humanoid. There were names for such tangles: they called them ‘rat kings.’ Now, it was the humans who gave way, watched all the while by blackberry clots of beady beady eyes. Some (clearly pox-mad) even claimed to have heard the misshapen heaps speak.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

Even how the plague killed was uncertain: symptoms seemed as various as rumours of origin. It often began with a fever, the chills, weakness. Some coughed their way into a mucous-filled demise: their lungs no longer able to draw air. Some had agonising pain in their stomachs and fingertips, toes and noses that turned black before the end. But the most common by far were the buboes, reddy-blue bulges at the neck, under the arms and on the inner legs. Doctors called them ‘tokens,’ as if they were a fehtish in some morbid game. All you could do was pray they burst before they killed you.

Oh, there were medicines, to be sure! More than one could count, in fact, but less than the teeming hordes of newly minted experts willing to sell them to you: arsenic amulets; treacle and mithridatium; viper’s flesh; ‘four-thieves vinegar’ soaked into sponges within silver sniffing skulls; cinnamon and fennel; oranges stuffed with cloves; sharing your living space with the most foul-smelling goat one could find;185 dead toad charms hung about the neck (living toad charms did kick so); powdered unicorn horn and frog legs (very French); the live tail feathers of a chicken applied directly to the buboes; opening the windows; closing the windows; throwing parties for guests; NOT throwing parties for guests;188 making the victim sweat buckets and then applying a recently murdered pigeon... the list was endless. Smoke was always good for the lungs, obviously, and the Lord Mayor had huge bonfires lit about the city, which only added to the apocalyptic ambiance: nothing quite says ‘End of Days’ like a green-tinged miasmic fog filled with stumbling disease-maddened silhouettes.189 One enterprising individual and local celebrity, a former composer and active Quaker known as Solomon Eagle (Eccles to his friends), had taken this principle to the extreme by running around London naked with a pan of burning coals upon his pate.190

But the one thing everyone could agree on, was that the plague was completely lethal. Some perished the same day they were infected. Others lingered on in madness and agony for a week, or longer. Very few survived, and none stood aloof: not the doctors in their Souls’ Day costumes; neither the righteous nor the bent; not young nor old; rich nor poor. An equal opportunity killer. The King, with all his newfound égalité, should have been proud. A plague for the ages.

And the masses. Within one month, the butcher’s bill had risen to over 20,000 (this from a population of around 400,000). Nor was the misery entirely confined to London. The rich had fled early. A bill of health was required to travel out of the city, and the Lord Mayor had established a natty little side-hustle by insisting on handing them out in person,191 for a tidy fee of course. But these certificates were not worth the paper they were scribbled on, as many of the surrounding towns had begun to refuse entry regardless. The poor who had been desperate enough to try their luck on the road had flooded the fields and forests of the English countryside. Many soon returned: the plague was still preferable somehow to starvation. But those who did escape carried the pestilence with them. There was news of cases as far flung as Bristol and even Eyam in the North.192 What now was London, might soon be the kingdom entire.

John paused midstride: the music had stopped.

A forlorn bell sounded: “Bring out your dead! Bring out your dead!” That, at least, unlike the music, was a familiar sound of late, though more usually at night, for the Lord Mayor had, until recently, decreed that the collection of the dead could only take place after dusk, so as not to overly alarm the public (which took some doing, as they were already pretty alarmed). But, with the astronomical numbers now dying every week (thousands, if the rumours were true), the hours of darkness were no longer sufficient.

Silence had descended, but John was fast homing in on his best guess at where the momentary music had come from. Taking a stab, and turning a corner, he came face to face with a crowd. That, in and of itself, was something of a shock. When it came to crowds... well, people just didn’t any more. Of late, people crossed the street when passing another, or kept to the centre away from the buildings when no-one was about. But the people weren’t looking at John – he could only see backs of heads. They were staring up the street at—

“Jesus, Mary and Joseph!” swore John, a strict adherent to sacreligion (if not chronology).

For an instant, John thought a barge was being moved up from the river to a workshop, but they were far too north of the river for that. Hewn from blackest timbers, what was rumbling towards resembled some warped juncture between an ancient siege engine and a national monument, as if the Trojan Horse and a trebuchet193 had somehow collided head on beneath the equestrian of Charles I, but kept on going all the same! It trundled along the road on no less than eighteen (count them) immense iron-clad wheels, and dwarfed the residences to either side, which trembled and swayed at its passing. In place of a mast, the landcraft had a vast bronze bell within a wooden cage that looked like it had been stolen from a local church belfry.194 Then John saw the horses! Huge foaming shire things, daubed white as bone! Four of them!

Displayed upon the craft’s bed, high as a gallows stage, in a rose-scattered ring about the central bell, were large boxy objects, covered in black sheets. The many drivers and crew that beetled over the festering barks were similarly shrouded, their faces dark portholes within their cloaks.

Suddenly, the reins were pulled, and the horses snorted to a halt. The atmosphere was tense; full of intrigue! The crowd was silently awestruck. No music now: the bell rocked but did not sound. A whiff of... brimstone? No. Peppermint! Peppermint?

All of which had been carefully stage-managed to make what followed doubly astonishing!

The ‘crew’ threw off their black cloaks. The sable sheets feathered to the ground like spirits returning to the underworld. A blare of trumpet, drum, organ, theorbo and lute!195 A flash of gold thread waistcoats, silver-tipped canes and whiter than white grins! Musicians, dancers, and...

“Roll up! Come and get ’em, yessir!” The ringleader of this morbid band stepped forward. He was very tall, broad of hat, with a hooked nose and sleepily hooded eyes.

Oh, so that was what he’d been doing this last month! Indulging his little hobby. Overindulging by the look of things! Figured. No wonder he’d been so hard to pin down of late! Still, John had never realised that Jerry could sing.

The other master of ceremonies, somewhat lesser in stature but equal in pomp, stepped forward to join him. What was his name again... Clit? Clife... Definitely Clife!

“Roll up! Buy or let ’em!”

Jerry was next: “Get your coffins while they’re hot, and YOU are still warm!”

John sniffed. They were well-oiled, he had to admit! He wondered how many times they had done this already...

Becaned dancers whirled around the gruesome twosome as they sang:

“Roll up, time’s a-wastin’, yessir!”

“Roll up! It’s time for ’astening! You ain’t got long until that final dong...” Jerry gave the church bell behind him a good wallop with his shovel “...so why not go out in style?”

Clife was now whipping more sheets off the boxy objects, revealing a bizarre collection... of coffins.

Jerry moved down the line, spinning and slashing, the consummate salesman.

“Take a look, we’ve got some smashing deals now...”

Clife: “Our only aim in life is to please...”

Jerry: “’Ow’s about a family-sized coffin with breathing hole accessories?”

Clife: “Every casket is a bespoke basket: they never quite come out the same...”

Jerry nodded with a grin: “No, not exactly!”

In harmony: “We put the ‘U’ in ‘Undertaking!’”

Clife: “We’ve never had a return!”

Jerry: “We bury but we don’t burn!”

Duo: “’Cause service is our middle name!”

Jerry stabbed at a clearly terrified member of the crowd, a fragile old lady who might have passed at any moment, plague or no. “Step up! Don’t stand there lookin’! Yes, ma’am! Step up! Let’s make a bookin’!” Another, a younger fella this time, sallow and thin. “You better step up, mate, and buy your final crate before it’s time...”

Clife seconded: “Time...!”

Together! “Time... to step down!”

The young fella’s eyes were wide in terror... his hand twitched reflexively towards his purse...

John suddenly realised he’d been gaping so long that he was actually drooling.

But more astonishing than the monstrous plague-cart, the live band and top-hatted dancers, the ridiculous coffin designs or frankly obvious charlatanry on display... was that it was working! Amongst the crowd, hips were starting to sway, feet were tapping, and eyes were widening with desire! Ushered by the comely dancers, folk were stepping forward for a fitting, or were stepping into the samples and trying out the oars and breathing tubes for themselves! And why in hell’s name did a coffin need OARS??

John pushed forward into the crowd to get a better look... Money was being handed over, large purses of coins... Who brought such quantities with them into the streets? And they were smiling! The idiots were actually smiling as they handed over their life savings and made off with their prizes on their backs, straining under the weight of the last purchase they ever intended to make! Bidding wars were breaking out over the last few caskets! Had the world gone MAD???197

And, in no time at all, the plague-cart was empty of product!

Clife beamed! “Well, that’s all for today folks! But let’s have a big hand for London’s favourite coffin maker... Mr. Gerald Muldoon!”

Jerry pirouetted into a curtsy! John had never seen him happier.

“And, never fear!” said Clife, “We’ll be back before the buboes burst! Take it away boys!”

With a flourish, Jerry and Clife leapt back up upon the deck, as the dancers whirled to their big finish!

“It’s bubonic, it’s shambolic!

The super-dilla-killa plague!

It’s outrageous, it’s contagious!

We wonder if the plague will stay?

It’s not pleasing,

leaves you sneezing,

in a most alarming way!”

Oh my God! And there was a key change!

“It’s bubonic, it’s chthonic!

The super-dilla-killa plague!

It’s contagious, quite outrageous!

We wonder–”

Canes were spun!

“Wonder...”

The whip was cracked!

“Wonder?”

The horses strained and reared under the immense weight at their backs...

“WONDER!”

The crowd waved and ran beside the cart as it trundled past John and on down the street! Suddenly, John remembered himself and his current predicament. “Jerry! Jerry!” he called and waved, swept along with the crowd! But, Jerry, beaming and blowing kisses to the masses, could not hear him...

“Wonder if the plague will stay-ay-ay-ay?

The super-dilla-killa plague! Ah!” Jizz hands!

At the end of the street, the entire deck crew reset their sombre sheets, the bell was sounded, and grave words – spoken, not sung! – rang out once more...

“Bring out your dead! Bring out your dead!”

The plague cart swung slowly around the corner, knocking over a statue of the King at the junction, and was gone.