Free Plague by Ann Turnbull Page B

would be allowed out until forty days after the last person inside had either died or been found to be free of plague.
    Sam could hardly believe that just two weeks ago he and John had been playing together in the streets. The plague had seemed a fun game then. Now it was a terrifying reality.

3
Death All Around
    â€œOh! Those bells! They drive me mad!” Alice exclaimed.
    The church bells rang almost all the time now, to mark the passing of those who had died. Day and night you could hear the plague carts rumbling over the cobbles, the cry of, “Bring out your dead!” and the thump of bodies being flung into the carts.
    Despite the bells, Alice was cheerful,humming a tune as she went about her work. Sam knew it was because tomorrow was her day off. She would be going home to Southwark to see her mother and sisters.
    â€œYou can strip your own bed, Sam, since you’re up here,” she said.
    They were in Master Kemp’s bedchamber and Alice was changing the sheets.
    Sam slept on a low bed in one corner of the room. He hardly needed sheets at all, he thought, the weather was so hot. It was mid-August, a month since they had started keeping Budge indoors. In the heat of the midday sun, the upper floor of the house felt like a furnace.
    â€œIt’s so hot,” Sam sighed. “Shall I open the window? The bells have stopped now.”
    â€œDon’t you dare!” said Alice. “You know the fishmonger across the way died yesterday. The rest of them are boarded up inside.”
    Sam saw that the fishmonger’s upstairs windows were open – and the upper floors of their two houses were only yards apart.
    â€œIf you stood here and breathed in, you could catch the pestilence from their house,” Alice went on. “It shouldn’t be allowed.”
    â€œWhat shouldn’t?” asked Sam, confused.
    â€œPeople in plague houses having their upstairs windows open!” snapped Alice.“Have you done that bed yet?”
    â€œYes,” said Sam. Before she could find another job for him, he added, “I’ll go and feed Budge now.”
    Downstairs, Master Kemp was busy tidying his workshop. “Just getting ready for when my customers return,” he said.
    Budge was fretting at the back door. Sam let the dog out, to a patch of earth in the yard. But he dared not allow him to stay outside for long.
    The yard stank. And over everything, in the air, was a rotten, putrid smell – the smell of corpses.
    Later in the morning William Kemp said to Sam, “Church today.”
    â€œMust we go?”
    â€œWe must. You know that.”
    The Lord Mayor had ordered every Wednesday to be a day of prayer and fasting, and everyone had to attend church.

    â€œIt’s that churchyard,” Sam said. “I hate it now.”
    The path to the entrance of St Matthew’s church led between newly filled graves. There were so many that the dead were heaped up either side of the path, one on top of another. The stench was overpowering. Even inside the church the sickening smell lingered, despite the flowers and herbs placed all around. The bell tolled dolefully.
    When Sam saw all the people on their knees and heard the prayers and weeping, he felt sure that God would listen to them. Somehow he couldn’t believe he would die, like poor John Jenks or the fishmonger.
    The congregation was reciting the ninety-first Psalm: “He is my refuge and my fortress: my God; in him will I trust… Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night… nor for the pestilence that walketh in darkness…”
    Alice said afterwards, “I like those words. They comfort me.”
    But in the evening, William Kemp sighed and said he felt uncommonly tired.
    â€œI’ll take an extra dose of that medicine,” he said. “A night’s rest will put me right.”

4
The Apothecary
    Sam was woken early next morning by the sound of William Kemp tossing and