But why was the place so quiet? As he entered, the porter at the gate gave him a strange look, and as he gazed across the tranquil lawns there did not seem to be a priest in sight.
He went into the cathedral. That, too, was silent. He walked up the nave.
How he loved the soaring pillars with their gentle bend under the tower! Across the little transept in the choir, his father had built the strainer arches – shaped like the Gothic arches, one inverted above the other – that had helped to buttress the choir against the eastward drift it had suffered since the tower was built. One day, Nicholas believed, the canons would decide to put arches like that across the bending pillars at the great central crossing of the church. But no one wanted to spoil the unbroken line of the soaring pillars, and so far they had not bent anymore since the spire was completed.
“The spire holds up by our faith,” the priests liked to joke.
For an hour he went quietly about his work, a small repair in one corner of the cloisters; then, wondering why there was still no one about, he went out into the close again.
It was the porter at the gate who told him.
“You haven’t heard? The plague came to Sarum yesterday. They say it’s in the city now.”
“Who has it? How many?”
The man shrugged. “No one knows. Half the people are staying indoors.”
As Nicholas walked through the streets, he found it was true. The only crowd was outside Shockley’s store, and they were hammering on the door and on the shutters over the windows. When he asked one of the women why, she cried:
“He’s got herbs in there. Cures to prevent the plague. But he won’t open his doors to anyone. Coward,” she yelled. “Viper.” But the Shockley house remained silent.
He wandered all over the town, trying to get definite news. There was plague in the outlying farms, he heard, but no one knew which. A man had fallen into one of the water channels with it, a trader in the market told him; but no one else had heard of the incident. People were coming out of their houses now, asking each other what was happening, but no one seemed to have definite information. Some people said that Shockley the merchant knew more, but his house was still closed.
At the end of the morning, he decided to return to Avonsford. The place had changed completely. In the main street, a group of villagers, no longer scoffing, were anxiously looking at the sky for signs of the dark clouds they expected to bring the plague. They glanced at him cautiously, but he passed on.
Was it possible, he wondered, that Agnes might be right after all in choosing the isolated sheep house? The threat of the plague seemed to be all around him here.
He went to the family’s cottage, collected an extra jerkin and two blankets and began to make his way out of the village again.
It was just before he left that he saw the first real sign of the panic that was about to grip the area.
The priest’s house was little more than a cottage, for his stipend was modest, and it was only more dignified than the other village houses because it stood apart from the line of the main street and had a small paddock beside it.
To his surprise, as he went past, the priest ran out from it into the lane and seized him by the arm.
“My sheep, Nicholas,” the gap-toothed vicar cried. “Come quickly and look at my sheep.”
And when he followed him, Nicholas saw three sheep lying in the paddock. They were all dead. At the vicar’s urging he looked at them.
“Well, what killed them?” the priest asked him anxiously. He kept running his hands through his thin hair.
Nicholas shrugged. “A murrain I suppose.”
“You don’t know?” the vicar demanded plaintively. Nicholas gazed at the dead sheep again but did not answer. “It’s the plague,” the priest suddenly cried out in despair. “The plague. We’re all lost.” And to Nicholas’s amazement, he burst into sobs.
He had not heard that sheep could catch the plague. He wondered if it were true. The vicar was still weeping as he turned up the lane.
It was mid-afternoon when he reached the sheep house. He smiled to himself as he saw the curious circle of stones around it. For all her faults, he thought, Agnes was a remarkable woman. And as he considered the place in its isolated setting he could not help admitting that it was undeniably safer than the city or the village. She is right after all, he admitted to himself. She’ll bring us through if anyone can.
He smiled, too, when he saw his youngest half brother, a dark-haired boy of four, solemnly standing guard by the door with his little bow and arrow. He heard the boy cry out happily as he advanced towards him.
The morning had seemed to pass slowly for Agnes. John had not given her any trouble, but it had been difficult to contain the children within the circle of stones, though somehow she had done so.
The place was astonishingly quiet. Far from the trees, even the birds scarcely seemed to visit it, and most of the time they had only the drifting clouds for company. No animals had come near except once, soon after dawn, when a fox, scenting their occupation, had cautiously approached. As soon as it saw her, it began to lope away, but not before she had skilfully loosed a stone from a sling that struck it hard in the hindquarters and caused it to scamper off, to the delighted cries of the children.
Noon passed. The children dozed while she sat quietly by the entrance. There was no wind; the only sound was the gentle scraping of John’s knife as he fashioned a new arrow for one of the children’s bows. An hour later she let the little boy take her place while she slept.
Now his cry had awoken her.
For a second the sun hurt her eyes as she ran out, shook off her sleep and stared anxiously into the hard yellow light of the afternoon.
He was only a hundred yards away; her little boy was about to run towards him.
And now she was fully awake: for this was the test.
“Back into the house and stay there,” she ordered. And then, seizing the child’s bow, she went out to the line of stones.
He was surprised when Agnes called him to stop.
She was standing there with the child’s bow in her hand, her square chin thrust forward in the look of determination he knew so well. He saw his brother John, emerging from the sheep house behind her. He smiled.
“Where have you been?” Her voice was hard.
“To the city. And to Avonsford.” He started forward again, but she raised her hand.
“Has the plague begun?”
He shrugged.
“Maybe. They said a man died in the city, but I never saw him. The vicar,” he jerked his thumb towards the village, “says his sheep are dead of it.” He grinned as he remembered the man’s sobs. “Looked like the murrain to me.”
Again he moved forward, John was still approaching behind her.
And then, to his amazement, she calmly fitted a little arrow to her bow and drew it.
“No further.”
Her body was square and rigid, as an archer’s should be. She held the bow steadily. And the little arrow was pointing straight at his heart.
“Go back,” she told him. “You must not come in here again.”
She saw the look of bewilderment on his face. It hurt her as though he had been her own son. But she knew she must not flinch.
Determined, she forced herself to stare straight into his eyes so that he could see she would shoot if she had to, and though for a second her hand trembled, she thought of her three children and it became firm again.
Nicholas hesitated.
If he took another step, she must do it. But could she? And if he forced her to shoot, what next? She had no idea.
They faced each other in silence. Neither moved.
Now John was at her elbow. She could hear him breathing.
“Let him in, mother,” he said softly. From the tone of his voice she knew at once that he thought she had gone mad.
“You promised to obey me,” she reminded him. Why did he not understand?
“Let him
in.” This time it was an order.
She did not move. And she did not take her eyes off Nicholas. If she gave in now, everything would be destroyed.
John started to reach out, to take the bow from her.
“Touch me and I’ll shoot him.” She heard her own voice, hard and authoritative. It surprised her, but she was glad it was so convincing.
She did not see, but she sensed his hand draw back.
“If the plague’s in the city, he may be carrying it,” she said calmly. “The risk is too great. If he carries it, we may all die.”
John said nothing. She knew he did not believe her.
Then, to her astonishment, it was Nicholas who spoke.
“She is right. I will go.” He turned to go, and then, with an afterthought he called: “I’ll come each day and tell you when the plague has passed.” He strode away. Slowly she lowered the bow.
John was gazing at her. His mild round face was contorted with rage; his voice was edged with contempt.
“What have you done?”
The anger and reproach in his voice cut her to the quick. But she did not show it.
“Saved us,” she replied bluntly.
Rose de Godefroi displayed the first signs the next day. At first no one noticed.
She had been proud of her simple precautions. She felt sure that at Avonsford she had created a safe haven for her husband and her son.
But as dusk fell and the household had just drunk the potion of Malmsey wine she had prepared, she suddenly felt faint. She steadied herself quickly; Gilbert had not noticed. A few minutes later the faintness passed and she dismissed the tiresome sensation from her mind. Half an hour later, she suddenly began to shiver. The candles were lit; in the half light neither Gilbert nor the serving woman realised. Quietly she retired to the solar.
Soon afterwards, she vomited.
She knew what it was. She had no shadow of a doubt.
Gilbert had probably nodded off in his chair in the hall. She was glad to have a little time to herself to consider what to do.
There was only one thought in her mind: how to save the others in the household. There was little use, she guessed, in trying to send them away. However the plague reached her, it had probably infected its chosen victims in the manor already.
But then she thought of her son. It had been so many months since she had seen his cheerful face and tousled head. How she had longed for his visit. If she were to die, she must prepare herself to do so without seeing him – he must not come to Avonsford now, that was certain.
No word had come from the Whiteheath manor – perhaps this very moment Thomas was on his way. She trembled, now, even to think of it. In a moment she must get up and warn her husband to send messages to stop him coming. If only she did not feel so weak. She closed her eyes.
It was the sound of clattering hoofs on the cobblestones that awoke her with a start. A glance at the shortened candle beside her couch told her that an hour had passed. And now she was not only wide awake but seized with panic. A horseman arriving at the manor after dark – it could only be Thomas.
She struggled to her feet, and, stumbling, crossed to the window before peering out into the courtyard below. A servant had opened the door. By the light of the torch he carried, she could make out a figure dismounting from his horse. She rattled the window desperately. He must not come into the house. The figures below took no notice. She reached out for something with which to break the glass, but then again the dizzy faintness overtook her and she fell back.
It was a few minutes later that Gilbert de Godefroi stood at the open doorway staring at the form of his wife. She was lying on the floor, her white hair covering her face like a shroud.
The messenger from Ranulf de Whiteheath, who was waiting in the yard below, had brought him a simple message:
“My master was away when your groom arrived. Your son is well but we have heard that the plague has reached Sarum. Do you still wish your son to return?”
And it was only when he had revived her and brought her to her bed again that she looked at him calmly but sadly and said:
“You must keep the boy away.”
That night she lay alone in the solar while, at her insistence, Gilbert slept in his chair in the hall. Both only slept fitfully, and several times he went to look at her. “You will feel well very soon,” he promised her, and at first light he made her drink some Malmsey wine. Soon afterwards she was sick again.
The buboes began the following evening: three little red rashes, under each armpit and in the groin. Before dark, they had already swollen into boils that made her cry out in pain, and as night fell the word spread through the village:
“The lady of Avonsford has the plague.”
She tried to keep her husband calm, but she did not succeed. He sent for the vicar, but word came back that the gap-toothed priest, terrified by the sight of his own dead sheep, had fled. As he gazed at his lovely wife, with her snow-white hair spread around her head on the pillow like an aureole, and saw with horror the way her body was being torn by the wracking pains, he remembered the haunting words of the poem they had heard two nights before, and they came back to him with a terrible new force:
And torn apart your limbs be all
No one can help you, no one shall;
Tomorrow, lady, we shall call.
He could not bear to think that she could be taken from him.
“God save us all,” he cried, helplessly.
He did what he could. He filled the room with herbs. He prayed himself, night and day; he sent for other priests and at last two were persuaded, for a handsome fee, to come out from Salisbury. But the hideous buboes grew: the one in her armpit was soon the size of an apple, white and hot, as the disease took its inevitable course. By the third day of her illness, he was desperate for any remedy.
It was when he had reached this point of despair, that Margery Dubber asked to apply her cures. She had been brooding for two days in the kitchen, waiting for someone to summon her. Everyone in the village knew that her cures for all ailments were the best, and more than once she had dropped a broad hint to that effect to the knight. He had taken no notice. Now however, seeing his wretched state, she went up and suggested herself boldly.
Godefroi was ready to agree, but Rose would not. Her eyes were sunken now, black with pain, but she found strength to raise her head, stare at the cook and order: “No.”
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 ma
ny – 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.