A Plague of Sinners (25 page)

Perkins watched us keenly. ‘Lo, this only I have found, that God hath made man upright.’

It was thirty long paces from where we stood to the lectern afore us. Candles had been placed further from this side of the church and closer to the main entrance so the door to the vestry was barely visible.

‘Ready?’ Dowling growled.

‘Aye.’

Perkins watched us with darting eyes. He stumbled on his words then concentrated on reading faster.

Dowling and I counted to three together, quietly, then dashed forwards. As soon as we moved, Perkins screamed at the top of his voice, a shattering shriek. His body jerked taut, back arched, and this before we took barely two steps. It was difficult to tear my eyes from him, and when I did, the vestry door was open. I flung myself into the black room. I dimly made out the shape of the door to the street, and launched myself forward, catching my knee upon the edge of a solid table. The door was locked and the key was in the lock.

I returned to the lectern, where awaited a horrible sight. Perkin’s head was flung back, eyes tight shut, teeth clamped hard together in bare grimace. Though his groin was thrust forward against the lectern, his fleshy white buttocks hung down in four rippling waves. It was like the rump of a great bullock and from that rump protruded a black iron stake, about which poured a river of rose-red blood.

Dowling turned towards me and held out a short heavy hammer. His grey bagged eyes were wet and tearful. ‘He is still alive.’

‘Not for long,’ I assured him. There was too much blood creeping steadily towards my feet. ‘Did you see who did it?’

‘No.’ Dowling looked aghast. ‘Was he not in the vestry?’

‘No.’ I shook my head angrily. ‘You sure you saw nothing?’

‘Nothing.’

Damn fish teeth. Our killer was cleverer than us and more confident. He had known what we would do, known that we would leave the main door free, known that the
sight of his handiwork would render us incapable.

‘What next?’ I turned wearily to the lectern, unable to resist another glance at the spike. In front of his falling thighs was empty space, beneath his feet nothing. Betwixt the pages of the Bible? I reached forward, avoiding the touch of the dead man’s skin, turned the page and found another yellow letter. Stepping close to a candle, I read aloud.

‘What direction is this?’ I felt like screwing it into a ball and throwing it. ‘Why can he not simply tell us where to go?’

‘He does.’ Dowling took the letter from me. ‘This is from the first book of Kings with four words inserted; “from the King’s Wardrobe”.’

We exchanged sombre stare. I recalled Wharton’s mocking laugh when he talked of trust. ‘This is why he abducted Liz Willis,’ I realised. ‘So we have no choice but to follow his instruction.’

Dowling’s eye leaked a thin, yellow pus. ‘No choice then.’ He turned on his heel and headed for the door.

‘What of the rest of the letter?’ I hurried after him. ‘What does it signify?’

‘I don’t know, Harry,’ Dowling replied. ‘Unless we are about to discover an old lord being cherished by a virgin.’

‘Lord Arlington perhaps?’ I wondered aloud, much to Dowling’s disgust.

It was a long walk. Candles burnt low in the windows, and the streets were silent, save for the sound of our own footsteps. With all our recent exposure to the dead and dying, it was a sobering thought that still the plague had yet to truly infiltrate the City. I saw enough these last few days to imagine what life would soon be like for those who remained. How right Jane had been. I wondered if she lived still, then felt fresh pangs of guilt and fear that I had not managed to see her that day.

At last we reached the Wardrobe. Two new sentries guarded the front door, awake and alert. Were Forman and Withypoll sleeping?

‘Look at the door,’ Dowling whispered hoarsely. ‘It is marked with the cross.’

A big, red cross, indeed, bright and fresh. Perhaps God was more discerning than I gave Him credit for.

Dowling puffed out his chest and spoke to the sky. ‘Be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest.’ He stepped out in full view of the sentries and marched towards them. I followed.

The sentries pretended not to notice us until we approached close. They glared, stony-faced.

‘May we enter?’ I asked, half expecting some unknown magic to open the door and transport us across the threshold.

‘Why would ye want to enter?’ asked one. ‘Have ye not seen the cross?’

‘Methinks we have been summoned,’ I explained.

‘By who?’ the guard snorted.

‘By they that are in there.’

‘And who is that?’

‘Forman and Withypoll.’

The guard shoved me backwards, angry. ‘Forman and Withypoll are gone. There is but one man behind these doors
and he is not receiving visitors. Be on your way.’

Dowling fetched his credentials. ‘We are King’s men.’

‘There is no credential says I should allow you to enter the Wardrobe when it be cursed with plague. The only one that may enter here is the medic.’

At which point the clouds parted and the light shone through. Wharton knew I had the medic’s robes.

An hour later I trudged back down the Old Change, Dowling at my side. My head floated light and porous while my stomach weighed heavy and sick. It was not far away, the hour of waking, yet we were still living the day already gone.

It was clear I must enter alone, but we decided Dowling would wait as close as he might without attracting the sentries’ attentions. I walked the last fifty yards with as purposeful a step as I could muster. The sentries had their own torches by which light I saw their suspicious faces once I approached close. I could read the mouth of one that wanted to know why I did not arrive by coach as usual, but I pretended not to understand and tapped a finger against my ear. Another made a sign that I take off my hood, but I waggled my finger and shook my head. While they dawdled I stepped forward and opened the door.

Soft moonlight shone through high windows, bathing the wood-panelled walls. A fiery torch blazed in a holder upon the wall, creating sinister shadows. Was it for me, I wondered? I removed my mask, dropping it upon a small, yellow table with thin, carved legs. I took the torch and approached the double doors opposite. Beyond was an ornate dining room, with long oak table and sturdy upholstered chairs. Drapes hung about the walls, long and golden, all very French. I watched myself walk past a mirror spanning floor to ceiling, encased in gilded
frame. I felt lonely and exposed, heard my footsteps echo too loud, reverberating about the whole house. I imagined Wharton’s ears pricking, saw him scuttle silently towards me, to pounce, to subject me to the same barbarity he inflicted on others. I hurried back the way I came.

Back in the hallway something slipped beneath my feet. I looked down to find a flower petal, several in fact, scattered about the floor. Red rose petals, fresh and recently dispersed. I held up the torch to see they marked a trail, leading across the hall and out towards the wide staircase.

I trod graceful as a blind bear. No matter how soft I placed my feet, my footsteps tapped loud against the tiled floor. All else I could hear was the noise of my own laboured breathing.

The staircase wound upwards in a long, square spiral, red petals upon ancient wooden treads that creaked as I climbed. I followed the way down a corridor leading long and straight. The doors to either side were closed, the door direct ahead stood ajar. The petals led all the way to the end.

I stood by the opening with my ear to the gap. As I accustomed to the quiet, so I heard faint noises; an occasional moan, the soft clearing of a throat, the creak of a bed-board. Someone lay asleep. And the petals led forwards. What if this was nothing to do with Wharton, after all? Perhaps I interrupted a romantic assignment. But in a sick house?

I eased the door open and held the torch forwards. Two pairs of eyes sought mine, two men wriggling and struggling to be free. I scanned the rest of the room to check no one else lurked, ready to assault me, then returned my attentions to the two naked men. Each was bound to a naked woman, yet the women lay inert and flaccid.

Two big candles stood upon a console. I lit them with the
torch, bestowing full light upon the bizarre scene. The two men wriggled and kicked, eyes wide like they saw for the first time who they were tied to. Each man’s arms were wrapped about the waist of the naked woman to whom he was attached, tied at the wrists. Each man’s legs were wound about the woman’s waist in erotic embrace, bound at the ankles. One couple lay entwined upon a bed, the other bounced and rolled upon the floor. I held my torch to one man’s face. Blue eyes darted about the room in terror, not an expression I had seen in them before, yet even without the fur hat I recognised Withypoll. The other then was Forman. He writhed as hard as Withypoll. The dead woman’s face fell against his, eyes closed, lips slightly apart. He strained to push his head away from hers, but her hair kept falling into his mouth. I pulled out his gag.

‘Lytle!’ he gasped, lips dry. ‘Cut me loose!’

He stared at the woman afore him to whom he clung in intimate embrace. She was young and pretty, a fair maiden indeed, except she was dead. Withypoll made a loud grunting noise, so I removed his gag as well.

‘Cut us loose, Lytle,’ Forman gasped again.

‘I cannot,’ I replied. ‘For though I don’t relish your sordid predicaments, yet you both threatened to kill me. What logic says I should free you?’

‘The logic that says if you don’t, then I will slice your throat in a minute once I am released,’ cried Withypoll. ‘This woman is a dead woman! Cut me loose!’

I stepped away, listening for any noise outside the door. ‘Shout again and I will gag you. Who tied you?’

Withypoll twisted his head sideways. ‘We were eating, downstairs, then I don’t remember. Forman?’

Forman attempted to lift his arms above the woman’s neck,
but his arms were bound too close to her back. ‘I don’t know who this woman is, nor how I came to be tied to her.’ He kicked his legs and roared out in frustration. ‘For God’s sake, she is dead, Lytle! Cut me free!’

I waved the cloth in front of his eyes. ‘You both fell asleep?’

‘No,’ Withypoll snapped. ‘It was witchcraft, devilry of some descript. One moment I was wide awake, the next I am lying in the dark upon this bed, strapped to this wench.’ He tried to blow the dead woman’s long, black hair away from his face. ‘Lytle, in God’s name, I beseech you. Cut me free, and as God’s my witness I will not harm a hair of your head. I will get down upon my knees and pledge you my eternal loyalty!’

‘I don’t doubt your sincerity,’ I assured him. ‘Nor my own dispensability.’

I knelt down next to Withypoll’s partner. She was curved and shapely, an attractive woman, yet the knowledge she was dead turned her to something rotten and decaying, an extinguished spirit. I felt sorry for Withypoll, the heat of his own warm flesh seeping into her cold corpse. Yet if I were to cut him free then he would kill me. What if I left him bound though? He would not rest until inflicting upon me a similar fate. I wished I had not come at all, yet Wharton arranged it. To what end? Then I noticed the swelling upon her neck.

I stepped backwards, tripped over my own feet and landed flat on my back. Withypoll strained his neck to watch me, curious and pleading. I realised he could see nothing but his partner’s face, Forman besides. I jumped up and retreated to the corner, as far from each of them as I could be. The dead woman stuck to Forman’s chest had her arms tied about his neck too. I peered beneath her armpit, stepping closer to see better. No mistaking the black shape tucked hidden away.

‘What are you doing?’ Forman growled, face red.

Following Wharton’s trail of death, I reflected, as I had been this past week. Each one an elaborate tableau of pain and misery, this one the worst, the moment they realised what Wharton had done to them. Now I was the torturer, exploiting their belief that truth might lead to redemption. The knowledge I deceived them revolted me.

‘Why did you kill War?’ I asked. ‘The man you killed at St Vedast’s. He thought you would be pleased to see him.’

Forman snorted, wriggling his body in an attempt to become more comfortable. ‘He was one of Wharton’s dogs.’

‘Why did you kill him?’

Forman sighed, clearly uncomfortable divulging further detail of his relationship with Chelwood. Yet what choice did he have? He attempted to catch Withypoll’s eye, but Withypoll couldn’t move.

‘The Earl of St Albans performed an important role for this country after the Restoration,’ Withypoll replied, impatient. ‘More recently he has been acting in service of his own needs. When he used Lord Chelwood’s name to defraud Henry Burke, Chelwood decided to act. By declaring his intent to remove himself to Ireland, he knew Arlington would move quickly to remove Wharton. Wharton overestimated his importance.’

‘Once Wharton was found dead, then was not Chelwood’s objective achieved?’

Forman spat the dead woman’s hair from his mouth. ‘Yet the nature of the death was curious. Arlington would not have killed Wharton in such circumstances, he would have killed him quiet and discreet. Chelwood asked us to find out who killed Wharton, and it was not Henry Burke.’

‘Who was it then?’ I asked.

‘We have not yet discovered it,’ Withypoll replied, surly. ‘Arlington, after all? Some say William Perkins, yet that too seems unlikely.’

What next, I wondered? I searched the room for another letter, some sign as to what Wharton would have me do next. I picked up the torch and inspected every corner. ‘Have you seen a letter lain about here?’ I asked.