Page 101 of The Pirate and the Pagan
“You must be mistaken, Sire. I don’t think she’s been here long. Stubborn wench had to be pried away from London, but my brother assures me he gave her safe passage here.”
Charles shook his head and winked at Ruark. “I know Summer isn’t here or I wouldn’t be so damned bored.”
“She must be staying with Lady Richwood,” said Lord Helford, unable to keep the annoyance from his voice.
Charles grinned. “Get her with child, it will effectively clip her wings.”
“I’ve already done that, Sire, but it doesn’t stop her from running off on her adventures.”
Before Summer left the security of Cockspur Street, she wanted to be sure she had everything she might need. First and foremost was money; it was ever so. Then she decided if she was carrying a tidy sum of money through half-empty streets, she would need her pistol. She found a valise and put in a package of the dry biscuits and a bottle of full-bodied port wine. She put in a fresh change of clothes and a pair of soft slippers along with her toilet articles. Knowing she would likely have to walk for two or three miles into the city proper, she knew she could not carry more.
She set off along Northumberland to the Thames, Perhaps she would be lucky enough to find traffic on the river which would take her to Paul’s Wharfe. There was an occasional wherry passed in midstream, but no matter how loudly she hailed it, she was totally ignored. Finally she gave up and resigned herself to walking. As she made her way along the Embankment she noticed all kinds of disgusting rubbish had collected and where the filth had fallen into the water, it had turned into a loathsome broth. Emaciated dogs rummaged in reeking piles of rotting filth and Summer had to avert her eyes. Gulls and even crows were picking at bloated objects floating farther out in the Thames and Summer’s graphic imagination made her gorge rise.
Between White Friars Stairs and Black Friars a navy patrol boat pulled close enough to call out to her. “If you enter the city, you will not be allowed to leave, and there is a curfew.”
“I must find my brother,” she called back.
“Over seven thousand died last week. Guards are posted in the streets to keep people inside.” He did not await her reply. He had warned her and if she was pig ignorant enough not to heed him, then plague take the wench.
She turned north from the river at Bridewell Prison and wished to God she hadn’t. What furniture and mattresses had been supplied the prisoners were now heaped into the street on bonfires and guards were in the process of carrying out the corpses of women who were dying like flies. The bodies were half-naked. All had bare legs and feet; the rest of their emaciated bodies were garbed in tattered rags. The stench was unbearable and every last one was smeared with the grime and filth of years.
She began to shake uncontrollably and turned back to the river to cut through by Baynard’s Castle. That also was a mistake. Seamen lay in the street. At first she thought they were plague victims, but before she could avoid them, they crawled after her and clawed at her skirts, begging for food. A few were drunk, but most were genuinely starving, for no ship would take back its crew members once they had been in the City of London and sailors by the score had nowhere to go, no money, and no food. Their eyes were filled with apathy and misery and malice.
Summer gave them all the dry biscuits she had and literally pulled her skirts from their beseeching hands. She ran from the river all the way to St. Paul’s then turned into Warwick Lane and looked for number 13. There was a yard with a water pump, but it seemed deserted. All the ground-floor houses which had the even numbers were empty. Her eyes lifted to the odd-numbered dwellings upstairs and she spotted the ominously numbered 13. With her heart in her mouth she hammered on the door and was swept with a wave of relief when no one answered her knock. He must be safely in Oxford. She sat down on the landing of the outside staircase to catch her breath. Now that she was past the halfway mark of her pregnancy she found she wasn’t as quick and agile as she had been and exertion left her quite breathless.
As she sat resting the sound of someone softly crying came to her. She lifted her head warily like an animal scenting danger. Suddenly she knew it was her brother, even though she hadn’t heard him cry since he was three. She looked through the window which was slightly ajar and saw him sitting with his head in his hands, rocking back and forth.
“Spider, it’s me, Cat,” she called to him. When he didn’t seem to hear her, she pushed hard against the door and found that it was not locked after all. The stench which met her nostrils was so offensive it staggered her. She went on her knees before him. “Spider, it’s Cat … what’s the matter?” she demanded. He lifted his head slowly and looked at her with glazed eyes. Then he seemed to become aware of her for the first time. “Is your friend sick?” she demanded.
He nodded his head. “Edwin … he’s got the plague,” he whispered in a terrified voice.
“Where is he? Through here?” she asked, standing up and going toward an inner door.
“No, Cat, for Christ’s sake don’t go in there. He’s finally gone to sleep.”
“The stench in here is unbearable; come on, you’ll have to help me clean it up,” she said, looking with distaste at a pile of soiled towels and sheets. “These should be burned. Do you have more?” she asked. He shook his head wearily. “Well then, I’ll just throw them down into the courtyard and wash them later. I’m going down for water from the pump. We’ll have to scrub this place to eliminate some of the stink.” She had to busy herself or her thoughts would have driven her mad. If Spider had nursed Edwin, he was sure to have been infected. She struggled up the steps with the heavy bucket of water and called, “Damn, Spider, get off your arse and help me.” It was then she noticed he was not just filled with apathy, he was flushed.
The silence in the fashionably appointed bachelor apartment gave her a creepy feeling. On impulse she opened the hall doorway and went into the first bedroom. This was definitely the source of the stench. The floor was slippery with excrement and vomit. In fascinated horror she drew closer to the bed. The young man’s face was bloated and going black. She had no way of knowing how long he had been dead.
She ran back into the salon. “Spider, Edwin is dead!” she cried.
“No … no … he’s just gone to sleep,” Spider mumbled.
“Come on,” she said decisively, “we’re getting out of here.” As Spencer stood up his knees buckled beneath him and he vomited.
“Oh, dear God, no, please no,” Summer begged under her breath. He staggered down the hallway and into a second small bedchamber, which mercifully held a clean bed. He fell down upon it and Summer quickly stripped him down to his shirt and placed a chamber pot beside the bed ready for a second round of vomiting.
She remembered the wine she had brought and poured out a small glass and fed it to him. It seemed to settle his stomach for the moment, but he was still very flushed and his eyelids closed heavily. She had no idea how long he’d been lighting off Edwin’s death, but realized he was exhausted. She heard a cry from the street and dimly realized it was a death cart. She ran out to the balcony and cried, “Up here, please, I need help.”
The cockney shouted back, “We only pick up from the street … we ain’t obliged to come into yer bleedin’ house, missus.”
“Wait … wait right there!” she ordered in her most commanding voice. She held her breath and plunged into the first bedroom. She forced her mind to dwell on other things as she lifted and hauled the bloated, black thing that had been Edwin Bruckner from the bed to the floor. She then pulled him by the bedclothes he’d fallen onto. Some reserve of strength she never knew she had enabled her to drag him outside onto the landing, “You’ll have to come up and get him,” she panted, holding a painful stitch in her side.
“Do ye fink yer the bloody Queen an’ I’m yer lady-in-waitin’?” he asked in outrage. “Rules is rules … I pick ’em up from the street.”
Summer was so angry she wanted to get her pistol and shoot the bastard, but then she would have a cartload of bodies instead of one to dispose of. With her last ounce of strength she dragged Edwin to the top of the stairs, placed her foot in the middle of his back, and kicked with all her strength. The body toppled down the stairs and landed in the courtyard with a sickening splosh.
“Christ Almighty, yer stupid cow, now I’ll ’ave ter use a shovel.”
