CLIVE’S JOURNEY HOME across the bridge took three times as long as it should have. He could not blame the traffic, for there was none. Nor could he blame the weather, which was temperate enough after the long dry spring. The rains would have been a relief, but they wisely seemed to be steering clear of the capital. Even the increasingly ubiquitous rat hordes were nowhere to be seen. In the end, Clive could only blame himself for his slow progress: more specifically, his feet. Made for walking they were, but, somewhere between Duck and parlour, they’d quite lost their soul.
Clive stopped and raised his head.
The bridge was empty.
Utterly.
Devoid.
Nothing living moved.244 It was a far far cry from the bustling pugnacious thoroughfare that had enveloped Clive on Oak Apple Tree Day.
And then there were the crosses. Somehow, Clive had never really looked at them before. Not really looked. For the past month, a daubed red cross on a door had been a sales lead, another coin in the purse. Repeat business was almost assured. But Clive was fast realising that each coffin sold was more than just a wooden crate with oars: it was someone’s father, mother, brother, sister, daughter or son. Some were all at once.
Before Clive knew where he was, he found himself outside that same Haberdashery whose amorous seamstress had nearly been the death of him not two months previous. On a whim, and like the postmaster before him, he knocked twice. Nobody answered.
“Hellooooooo!” he called. The silence was crushing. “hello?” he squeaked, quieter now. Not even an echo dared.
I did this.
He’d always known it. He had needed no grim valkyrie in a tight dress to tell him the truth. She had the uniform, but in reality it was HE, Clive, who was the end of all things. First the theatre back home... the Bard’s entire repertoire... maypole dancing245... and now his adopted home, the greatest human city in existence.
As for the seamstress, He had been the Death of her.
You’re a plague, Clive Hucklefish! I wish you’d never been born... This time, his internal monologue had Isabella’s dulcet tones.
Isabella. She had returned to him, his one ray of light! But that light was drowning in a deep pit surrounded by vermin, the angel of death at its nadir. Isabella had proven she could love a madman, even a kiddy fiddler on the razz. The girl had a heart like an almshouse: anyone could get in. But could she really love a mass murderer?
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The rats. Their plan; not mine. His reply, even in his mind, sounded weak.
Oh, the Piper would see to the rats, Clive was assured. With a grin like that, how could he fail? But that would not end the disease, nor bring back the thousands upon thousands who had already perished. Each a life for half a crown. Someday soon, Clive would be richer than the King of England himself; and his kingdom would be nothing but a grave.
Repent!
I do! Thought Clive.
“Repent!” Oh – that wasn’t internal. Somebody had said that out loud! Clive shook himself and cast about. The green mists pressed close from the river, but within the billowing funk there was something moving towards Clive now... a light!
A figure took shape. Tall and thin, with an elongated brow of flame.
Clive blinked. He’d been to church... sometimes. Was this the Angel of the Lord, sent to castigate him further? Given that he’d already encountered Death Herself, it would have been only a mild surprise.
The figure of the angel resolved.
A very naked angel. With a loincloth, and some kind of barbecu on its head. A sausage salesman then.
The bearded penitent stepped fully into view. He raised a finger at Clive. “Repent! Whilst thou still can!”
“Eccles?” Clive mouthed. He knew this man. Everybody did. Solomon Eagle, London’s favourite nut. “I thought you must be dead!”
“Perhaps I am?” ogled the Eagle. “For this surely is purgatory! Repent!”
“I’m trying, ok!” Clive wailed, the very picture of frustrated regret. “I’m just not quite sure how to do it! Any tips?”
Solomon thought about this for a moment. He pointed to the burning crucible structure on his nonce.
Clive sighed. “I knew you were going to say that!” Desperate though he was, he hadn’t quite reached the point of mounting a flaming bonfire upon his head.
“Sell it to you!”
“What?” Clive blinked.
“Sell it to you, if you like. Give you a good deal...”
“Wait! You mean this is all a sales pitch?”
“Man’s gotta make a living!”
“Not you too! We all thought you were just crazy!”
“I am crazy! Crazy to give away my life’s work for only 9d.99!”246
“Is everyone in London on the make?”
“Only them what’s breathing!”
“Sheesh! I thought you were a composer – an artist! Someone with integrity... if not... clothes.”
“I compose! Let’s see... here’s one–” he began to sing:
“For, if the lamb is my shepherd,
I shall not fear...
So throw a side on the barbie
and crack open a beer!”
Clive snorted in disgust and walked away as fast as he could.
The Eagle’s jingoes followed him into the mist.
“He hath the keys
to He’en and Hades...
So light me up
and charm the ladies!”
Clive made it home without further encounter. A worried Milly opened the door for him. “Clive!” she said. “Have you heard the news?”
“No. What’s happened?”
“The King! He’s abandoned the capital! Dragged the court off to Oxford! Took little Nelly Gwyn with ’im! We can’t believe it, none of us! Like rats from a sinking ship, all of ’em!”
Clive winced at the reference. The rats were definitely NOT abandoning ship: they were grinning behind the corkscrews!
“How’s Isabella?”
“Her father took her back to Nonsuch.”
“Damn! I walked right under them! I could have stopped by! But why are you still here? Where’s Jerry?”
Milly’s eyes quivered. “That’s the worst of it, Clive! I can’t find ’im anywhere!”