It was February, 1666. The Plague had finally ended: weakened, neutralised, sip by blissfully ignorant sip, by the distilled and diluted brilliance of the Alchemist’s Elixir, all drawn from that most plentiful source: the Thames, and its many tributaries.275 No more would the Elixir grant immortality, but, combined now with the plague serum, the resulting water was panacean indeed.
With the contagion in rapid retreat, the King and his court had returned from their refuge in Oxford; such a sublimely magnanimous act naturally merited the mother of all parades; a parade no self-respecting Londoner could possibly bear to miss!276
“Hurry up, you lot!” said Jerry, pushing through the gathering throng along Great Tower Street, “We’re going to be late!” Jerry was dragging Milly, who was pulling Isabella, who had Clive clasped in tow.
“What’s the rush, Jerry?!?” said Clive. “The parade doesn’t begin until 2! It’s barely half 1!”
“Yeah and look at this crowd! It’s going to be packed! We’ll lose all the best spots!”
It was remarkable to see crowds again in London. Life had returned, and was now enthusiastically trying to convince everyone it had never been away! It was not just the King that was back in town: it was the gentry in their fine carriages; the judges from Windsor; any and all that had had the means to leave; and many that had never been here in the first place: fortune-hunters eager to fill the many toothsome gaps left in London’s broad grimace by the less than fortunate dead.277 Hopefuls not so dissimilar to one Clive Hucklish – sorry, fish – less than a year before.
But most astonishing of all was just how nice everyone was being to one another. People stood aside to let others pass, greeted complete strangers with the time of day, and doffed caps or curtsied when collisions were unavoidable. They had stared down death,278 and were unified in their shared bounty of survival. Being at war with the much-hated Dutch helped, of course.
The outer walls of the tower hove into view ahead, peeking around the steeple of All Hallows-by-the-Tower.
Clive spied the Undertaker waving at them with exaggerated movements over near the Tower’s entrance. He looked as if he were airing an imaginary carpet. Clive waved and took the lead towards him. He omitted to tell Jerry, who was still also leading: Milly and Isabella found themselves stretched between a two-headed snake with as many minds, and they had accidentally clotheslined a small group of school children and their teacher before managing to rein in the boys.
“Will you two cool it already!” said Isabella. “We’re early for once!”
Phil shoved his way through to join them. “Late as usual!” he gruffed.
Isabella sighed and rolled her eyes. “We are NOT late!”
And then came the voice the undertakers most feared, and least expected. “Anbury!” The Alchemist stepped from concealment, laying down the two highly realistic mannequins on a rod he had been holding for cover. They looked like a dying child’s fever dream of a scarecrow. “So! Finally, we can end this once and for all!”
The Undertaker sniffed. “So be it!” And suddenly the beard climbed, as if in a smile (though of course that was impossible). “You old sulphursniffer!”
The Alchemist, whose face never bore bristle, was grinning openly as he sidled up to his nemesis. He nudged the Undertaker affectionately with an oddly fluid side movement of his hips. “Skullstasher!”
“Gunkmerchant!” The Undertaker chortled.
And then, the two men performed the miraculous – lead into gold, water into wine, kerchiefs into crockery – and embraced one another warmly.
Jerry, Milly and Clive all looked on agape. Isabella just looked bored, like she wished she had something in her hand to play with more entertaining than her nails.
Breaking the hug, the Alchemist buttressed (flying) the Undertaker’s shoulders magnanimously: “I still think you were Mother’s favourite!”
The Undertaker shook his head sadly. “No. I was just the more selfish son!”
Clive looked from one to the other in astonishment. “What! You mean you two…” He looked at Isabella accusingly.
Isabella shrugged casually. “Oh, didn’t I mention? That’s my uncle Phil!”
“You’re related???”
“Obviously! That’s why he’s my uncle!”
The Undertaker put a hand on Clive’s shoulder. “Clive! You will learn that there’s no feud as fierce as family! Blood is thicker than water–”
The Alchemist finished: “–but venom’s more viscous than both!”
Jerry was sidling quietly towards an exit.
But nothing escaped Milly. “Where’s you off too, then?”
Jerry looked awkward. “Clive – there’s something I haven’t told you... it’s ’bout the cart!”
“Jerry?”
“I figured we didn’t really need the capacity now the numbers were down, and... we might as well make a quick buckskin while we can, and... waste not want not, an’ all that, and... well, they asked and I answered...”
“Jerry! What have you done?”
But Jerry was already backing away, hands placating. “You’ll see, I promise! But I gotta go... they’ll need help with the horses! They don’t take well to anyone but me! And Lips still has a cold... and...”
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
Clive ope’d again to admonish... but Jerry turned and seemed to vanish into the crowd. Even his hat disappeared – quite a feat since he was taller than pretty much everyone about.
“What in the King’s name was that all about?” quizzed Isabella.
“I have no idea!” said Clive, “But I’m pretty sure we’re about to find out! Come on – the parade’ll be starting any moment!”
⁓ 🜂 ⁓
High in the belfry of All Hallows, a belfry most spacious ever since its bell had been stolen, a squat figure was also observing the gathering throng. His clothes had seen better days, but his ears were large, round and upright. In withered single claw, he held a looking glass.
“Humanity!” he scoffed, to no-one, since no-one else was here. “Abandoned by their rulers! Failed by their quacksalvers! I gave them a chance for a clean state! And yet... See how they run back to their idiotic idols! King! Country! Pathetic! I mean where’s the imagination?”
The looking glass panned and traversed, fixing on Clive and his entourage.
“Ah, there you are, Clive – ol’ buddy, ol’ pal!” he grinned to himself, all teeth beneath the lens. “Couldn’t stay away, could ya?” He looked from Clive to Isabella and back again. “‘When Anger and Revenge did marry, their daughter Cruelty was named’... so shall it be with yus!” The looking glass fell from the eye. One eye only. The other had been lost in his misjudged fall into the Thames. Why did those starlings have to be so damn pointy? A roguish black patch crossed the hollow left by the missing.
Isabella was all over Clive: her hands were the North, Clive’s shoulders the South, and all was magnetism. The Rat King’s grin broadened. “And from this little spark of joy shall I burn the world entire!”
And that was when someone coughed behind him.
He whirled, ready to hurl himself at whatever cretin of a cleric or bellboy had–
And then stopped.
Not what he had expected.
She was very tall, and clothed entirely in black. The scythe was a nice touch! Edgy.
“I vould prefer you did not take furser actions against zis city,” said Death.
The King recovered his aplomb with remarkable speed. “I don’t believe we’ve met?”
The valkyrie stepped forward. To the Rat King’s credit, he did not step back. “Nor vould ve ever, in ze normal course of events. Your kind is not mine to shepherd.”
The King was putting two and two together. “So that’s how Isabella survived! That’s pretty cute, ain’t it? For someone who’s supposed to have no feelings?”
Death shifted a hairsbreadth in what might have been Her admission of a shrug. “True. But zey do anshropomorphize us so very much! It’s hard not to feel something for zem. Now and zen...”
The King nodded, thoughtful. “So, er. Since it ain’t you – who’s my guy? Sorry – gal?”
A shadow passed across Death’s face, an eclipse of the moon: for a fraction of an instant of a second, she almost looked... troubled? “Zat is a question, ja! All species have zeir own Deaths, of course... rats are no different! But you are somesing else, aren’t you? Somesing... uzer. And so far – vell, it seems no-one vants ze job...”
The King grinned. “You mean... we can’t die?”
“No, of course not. You can die... you just can’t leave.”
The King nodded. “Well, that certainly explains how Scratchfella’s still with us! And why he don’t talk so much no more.” He turned to look again in Clive’s direction. “You think you can stop me from taking my just revenge?”
“Sadly, I cannot. But I do carry a varning. In ze end, all life creates its own Death. Your kind vill be no different. Sooner or later, you vill face your Omega! Of zat you can be certain!”
The Rat King inclined. “Looking forward to it, toots. Now, from one abomination to another, if you don’t mind–” he raised the looking glass “–I’m occupied!”
Death was still for but a moment. When she moved, it was too fast to follow—barely a black flash! The scythe rent the air in metaphysical violence, slashing a tear of blackest darkness – a darkness that screamed and tore and wailed with the spectral currents of ultimate annihilation! – and then she was gone, the tear sealed behind, and the belfry silent and still once more.
The Rat King chuckled again, and raised the looking glass, alone once more with his own dark contemplations. “O for a Muse of fire!”
⁓ 🜂 ⁓
On the day prior to his coronation in 1661, Charles II had processed from the Tower of London westwards towards Whitehall, so today was something of a nostalgia tour. Except, this time, the parade was not coming out of the Tower. It was coming from behind it.
The ground was shaking, the crowd screaming in anticipation!
It didn’t take long for Clive to see why.
What hove to around the North side of the Tower resembled a ship, except that it was very much landborne. It was brightly decorated with the blue red and yellow of the King’s heraldry, the bell mast strung with a huge crest, quartered and quadranted: the fleur de lis of France; the three lions of England; the yellow harp of Ireland; the white crossed red of England; the lion rampant of Scotland; rose, thistle, shamrock; encircled with a garter; flanked by a lion and a unicorn guardant; the words below: ‘Dieu et mon droit,’ the motto of all English Kings since Henry V, ‘God and my right.’280 Pulled by four huge white horses, the monstrosity was also highly familiar to Clive.
Jerry had pawned the plague-cart to the Crown!
The King himself, dashingly attired in blue, rakish in his long hair and moustaches, was sprawled across a golden throne, waving lazily with one hand. About his legs scurried a seemingly endless carpet of spaniels, whose drooping ears echoed the hairstyle of their Lord. One particularly favoured brown and white specimen adorned the King’s lap, where he fondled at its ears. And around the sea of dogs, at the edges of the deck, were the bristling yeomen, piked, bearded, alert and musketed.
But it was not the King that drew Clive’s eye (he had seen him before, after all), nor the yeomen (he had seen them too – at least, in a dream). Amidst all this finery, one thing was conspicuous for its abject, deliberate plainness. A man. Thin, reedy, almost consumptive, not old, perhaps in his mid 30s, though looking older; sharp of nose, sharper of eye, he stood at Charles’ right shoulder, clearly uncomfortable at the barked attentions of the putzis281 about his legs. Wigged, uncapped, and wearing a nondescript black doublet, he simply did not belong on the same stage as the monarch. Yet there he was.
“Who’s that?” Clive yelled to the Alchemist above the crowd, “The man next to the King?”
The Alchemist squinted. His face turned white. “That... is Christopher Wren. From Oxford University.”
“So? The King has a new adviser... Why the long face?”
The Alchemist’s eyes narrowed. “Cliff! You don’t understand! He’s a scientist! A real one! He studied and everything! Cliff! This is very very bad!”
“Maybe this city needs a little more real science?” Clive suggested pointedly.
The Alchemist’s eyes fell. “They say he experiments on dogs...” he sulked.
“Well, he’s got plenty to choose from by the looks of things!”
The Undertaker patted his brother on the shoulder. “You’re just jealous, Davey-boy. Let it pass.”
“It should be me, Phillip! It was I that cured the Plague, after all!”
“You also technically started it!”
“I was duped! I was hoodwinked! I was waylaid by foe most verminous–”
“A foe you yourself had imported from the colonies and then mutated in one of your own experiments, I understand?”
“How dare you! You’ll pay for your base slander, Undertaker!”
“We’ll see about that, Alchemist!”
But Clive was no longer listening. The former plague-cart, now royal chariot, swung past them, borne upon the thunder of gigantic wheels. And, sure enough, once again, Clive made the mistake of glancing up at the throne. And, for the second time in under a year, Charles II, King of England, Scotland and Ireland, raised upon high, stared right back down at Clive. And winked.