Plague

Read Plague Online

Authors: C.C. Humphreys

Tags: #Historical, #Mystery

A
LSO BY
C.C. H
UMPHREYS
 

The French Executioner

 

Blood Ties

 

Vlad: The Last Confession

 

Absolute Honour

 

The Hunt of the Unicorn

 

Jack Absolute: A Novel

 

A Place Called Armageddon

 

The Blooding of Jack Absolute

 

Shakespeare’s Rebel

 

A
S
C
HRIS
H
UMPHREYS

 

The Fetch

 

Vendetta

 

Possession

 

Copyright © 2014 C.C. Humphreys

 

All rights reserved. The use of any part of this publication, reproduced, transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, or stored in a retrieval system without the prior written consent of the publisher—or in the case of photocopying or other reprographic copying, license from the Canadian Copyright Licensing agency—is an infringement of the copyright law.

 

Doubleday Canada and colophon are registered trademarks.

 

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

 

Humphreys, C. C. (Chris C.), author
Plague / C.C. Humphreys.

 

ISBN
978-0-385-67992-3 (bound)
ISBN
978-0-385-67993-0 (epub)

 

I. Title.

 

PS8565.U5576P54 2014    C813′.6    C2013-906370-6
                                                        C2013-906371-4

 

Cover photograph © Malgorzata Maj/Arcangel Images

 

Map on
this page
-
this page
© Darren Bennett
Image on
this page
© Getty Images/NYPL Science Source;
on
this page
© Getty Images/Culture Club

 

Published in Canada by Doubleday Canada, a division of Random House of Canada Limited, a Penguin Random House company

 

www.randomhouse.ca

 

v3.1

 

To Ingegerd Humphreys
.
Miss Oslo. Spy. Mother. Friend. Much missed
.

 
 
 
 
London 1665
 

Five years after his restoration to the throne, after a decade of glum Puritanism, Charles II leads his citizens by example, enjoying every excess. Many Londoners flock to the reopened places of entertainment: the cockpits, the brothels, the theatres—where for the first time women may perform onstage alongside the men.

For some citizens, though, the wounds of the Civil Wars, which ended with the execution of Charles I in 1649 and the triumph of Oliver Cromwell and Parliament, have never healed. Especially bitter are radical Christians, those dissenters who enjoyed a brief tolerance under Cromwell and who are again persecuted. For them this liberated age has turned London into Babylon and many dream of an Apocalypse to purge the realm of sin.

Some do more than dream.

With its rambling streets, its great mansions, its fetid tenements, London is a city of contrasts. There is not enough clean water; there is too much garbage, there are too many rats. Refugees from Holland and France live ten to a room beside the English, who resent them.

The city is a labyrinth. At its centre sleeps a monster. When the time is right, that monster will wake. And it will want to feed.

The monster is the Great Plague.

Dramatis Personae
 

THE HIGHWAYMEN

Captain William Coke

Dickon, his adopted boy

Swift Jack

Maclean

O’Toole

 

THE THIEF-TAKER AND FAMILY

Pitman

Bettina, his wife

Josiah, their son

Grace, Faith, Imogen, their daughters

 

RESIDENTS OF ST. GILES IN THE FIELDS

Abel Strong, butcher

Little Dot

Mrs. Queek

Clancy, parish friend of John Chalker

Gentle George, pimp

“Lizzie,” whore

 

THE PLAYERS

Sarah Chalker

John Chalker, her husband

Lucy Absolute

Thomas Betterton

 

THE COURT AND THE NOBLES

King Charles II

James, Duke of York

Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon

John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester

Sir Charles Sedley

Roland, Lord Garnthorpe

Frances Stuart

Barbara Castlemaine

Winifred Wells

 

THE FIFTH MONARCHY MEN

Simeon Critchollow—Brother S.

Hezekiah Chambers

 

OTHERS

Colonel Wingate, magistrate, Finchley

Sir Griffith Rich, member of Parliament

Lady Rich

Aitcheson, attendant at the playhouse

Isaac ben Judah, goldsmith

Maggs, servant to Lord Garnthorpe

Mrs. Philips

The Coachman

Mrs. Chambers

The Doctor

Eye Patch, gambler

Tobias Sym, informer

Mistress Proctor, the searcher

Macready

Tombes, the ironmonger

James Morrow, headborough of the parish

Turvey, royal cook

 

Various Saints, jailers, guards, link boys, servants, searchers, boat men, playwrights.

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