At sea on the Woolly Fleece

The master of the Woolly Fleece was somewhat bemused by his two strange saturnine passengers, but they had paid well enough, and the master had been at sea for too many years to question gold coin placed in his hand. The two youths, Tim and Bob, kept themselves to themselves, bunking down with the sailors in the hold at night, and, strangely, crouching under the deck railing at the very prow of the ship during the day. The master thought they looked like hunched black monkeys as they huddled there, drenched with sea spray, bright eyes peering ahead.

They had sailed from the Pool of London ten days ago, making good time to The Hague where, over three days, they’d off-loaded their cargo of wool, then reloaded with fine woven cloth from Flanders and Venice. During these three days the two youths had absented themselves from the port, reappearing but an hour or two before the master was to shout the orders to cast off for England. He’d regarded them critically—as he did all passengers and sailors after a stay in the Low Countries—but they were bright of eye, and quick of movement, and he could see no sign of the sickness within them. If it was there, then doubtless it would appear on the voyage back home, and if that were the case, well then, the master would take care of it as he took care of all passengers or crew who happened to show signs of fever, or exhibited any lumps under their armpits or in their groin.

A regretful smile, and a quick shove off the deck. The rolling grey sea was, so far as the master of the Woolly Fleece was concerned, the best remedy of all for the plague.

But these two youths appeared well enough. They carried with them two small casks, which the master duly inspected.

They were packed with black feathers.

The master raised an eyebrow at the youths.

“We have a mistress,” said one of them, “inordinately fond of her feathers. The best of the black are to be found here, in the Low Countries.”

It was the strangest response the master had ever heard, but harmless enough, so he shrugged, and walked away.

An hour later, the Woolly Fleece was on her way back to England and her home port of London.

“Well?” said Catling. She sat on a bale of wool (part of the cargo awaiting the Woolly Fleece which would, within a day or two, be on its way to Flanders with this particular consignment).

The two imps stood before her, each with a cask under his arm.

“Collected from the very pits of the contagion,” said one.

Catling smiled, and jumped lightly down from the bale. “Good,” she said. “You may begin tonight. Not all, mind, just a handful here and there. I want this to spread slowly. Next week, a handful or two more, elsewhere.”

The two imps crouched atop a section of the crumbling medieval wall of London by Cripplegate. They had one of the casks between them. They sat there for several hours, absorbing the night, watching as lights winked out in houses, and the streets emptied of the last of the tavern customers.

In the very early hours of the morning, one of the imps inserted his long, thin, dark fingers under the lid of the cask and carefully opened it, placing the lid silently to one side.

He looked at his brother, blinked slowly, then gave a slight nod.

His brother lifted out a small handful of the black feathers.

“Go where you will,” he whispered, “and enjoy.”

Then he put his mouth to his open hand, and blew.

The feathers lifted out into the night, drifting this way and that, north and south, east and west, until, one by one, they dropped slowly, like soft sooty ashes, over the tenements of London.

Each one fell in a direct line, ignoring the wind, and each one fell, without fail, directly down a chimney to settle on the ceramic covers—called curfews—placed by householders over the coals for the night.

There, they clung to the handles of the curfews, ready to be taken up in the morning by whoever it was wished to relight the fire.

Eight days later, a gentle physician by the name of Nathaniel Hodges was called from his house in Watling Street to treat a young man who lived in a narrow laneway running off the churchyard of St Botolph Aldersgate. The moment Hodges saw the black swellings in the young man’s armpit he knew with what he dealt.

Hodges stepped back from the bed, and sighed, and shook his head at the man’s wife. “Pray,” he said, “and keep him comfortable. It is all you can do.”

From the house, Hodges went straight to his local alderman and reported that, regretfully, the plague had returned to London.

Two nights later, Catling sent the imps to the parish of St Giles-in-the-Fields, where they clung to the steeple of St Giles and cast their feathers into the night.

Two weeks later reports drifted into the Privy Council about the growing numbers of deaths due to plague. Fifteen hundred people in the parish of St Giles-in-the-Fields had died within the past eight days alone, and the council took the precaution of setting wardens at street junctions at the borders of the parish to prevent people leaving the plague-ridden area.

And then there was the area surrounding Smithfield. Although the first cases of the plague had been reported from there, the outbreak hadn’t been as heavy as that at St Giles-in-the-Fields. Now, however, it was growing, and creeping steadily through the ancient alleyways and lanes of the city.

Most worrying of all were the reports on the weather. It was unusually warm for the time of year, and dry, and with strong westerly winds. Historically the plague was always at its deadliest during hot dry spells when the wind blew in from the west.

The Council prepared itself for the worst, and sent a report to the king.