Sarum - Edward Rutherfurd [370]
But the next day she was too weak even for this; and so early in the afternoon, Margery, her two skewed eyes gleaming with satisfaction, was allowed to march into the sick room.
Her cure was simple. She had used it on swellings before, so why should it not work for the plague as well?
“You take a live frog,” she explained to Godefroi. “Press its belly against the boil. That will take the venom away.”
“And then?”
“Hold it there until the frog bursts,” she said. “Then take another.”
Rose was hardly aware of what was happening at first, and when she realised, she only cast her eyes up to heaven and said nothing.
It was not a success. Though she pressed them hard against the growing buboes, the frogs died without bursting, and after a few hours Margery Dubber shook her head.
“She’ll not be cured,” she announced as she left for the village.
That night, alone in the hall, the knight slowly read the tale of Sir Orfeo to himself, and waited.
Nicholas Mason spent one day at Avonsford. During this time, two men fainted in the fields and were carried home.
The next morning he went up to the sheep house; remaining outside the circle of stones, he told them how the plague had come to Avonsford and then, supposing the risk of catching it must be about the same in one place as another, he walked into the city.
The change there was extraordinary. There were few people in the streets now, but they hurried about anxiously with handkerchiefs over their faces. Already, several people had died – no one knew how many – but even as he walked through the market place, he saw a cart carrying two bodies lumber out towards the city gates. There was no organisation; the mayor and aldermen were locked up in their houses like everyone else.
When he passed the Shockley house, he found no crowd by the door. People walked past on the other side of the street, and though no one knew exactly what was going on inside, terrible retching sounds could be heard from time to time from within.
“They’ve all got it,” a neighbour told him, “in the lungs. They say the Wilson boy gave it to them at the farm and William Shockley’s vowed to turn them out for it.” He shrugged. “He’ll not live to do it though.” And as if to confirm this, a fit of coughing started from within and both men hurried away.
A number of people were leaving the city. He saw a small train of covered wagons at the corner of New Street, containing several families including that of Le Portier, the aulnager. He asked the wizened driver of the first cart where he was taking them.
“North,” the fellow grimaced. “They tell me to drive north. Who knows where they’ll end up?” His hard narrow face broke into a grin. “They pay me. I’ll take them all the way to hell if they pay me.”
The close was silent. There was not a soul to be seen. Even the vicars choral, those rowdy junior priests who, only the week before, he had seen exercising their dogs in the cloisters and drinking merrily on the green, seemed to be staying indoors in their lodging houses.
It was as he walked across the empty close towards the cathedral that he was surprised to be hailed by a loud voice.
“Mason!” He knew the voice at once.
Of all the undisciplined young clerics, the vicar choral Adam was the most hopeless case: he was considered a nuisance even by their own lax standards. This was not due to any evildoing on his part – indeed, there was not an ounce of malice in his nature – but because he was such a madcap. He was constantly involved in practical jokes or idiotic fights; never was a young man so obviously unfitted to be a priest. Yet when he was asked why he did not follow some other occupation, he gave the same answer that many another young fellow would have given at that time.
“How else is a poor man to eat and hope for advancement?” For outside the church, there was little scope for a youth who had no money and connection, and who wanted to be anything more than a humble apprentice.
Adam could be recognised half a mile away, not only because of his loud voice, but because instead of a