Plague by C.C. Humphreys

a quiet place to have his words. But now, just when he’d got close, his ignoble lordship had slipped into the sanctuary of his fellow Fifth Monarchist madmen. Saints, as they called themselves.
    Thrusting his hands into his coat pockets, John gripped his blackthorn cudgel and his razor. Though he’d never planned to use them as more than threat, he did not think he would get even that chance now. He could hardly march into a Saints meeting and deliver a warning in word, cosh and blade. Yet he could not wait—he’d been told these meetings went all evening in prayers, visions,exhortations to action. Night was coming fast, and it was a long walk back to London.
    Shite! He cussed, suddenly tired and hungry. Why had he not spent the Sabbath at home and content with Sarah? Why had he not heeded her caution to leave well alone? All they’d learned of Garnthorpe in the week since he’d approached Sarah at the theatre testified to a mad dog. The most brutal of soldiers during the wars, later the man had even spent a year in the same Bethlehem Hospital where his father, the first Lord Garnthorpe, had died, poxed and raving. Was not a Bedlamite hound likely to be distracted by the next thing, the next person who came to his scent? Garnthorpe had not returned to the playhouse, made no further attempt at contact. Perhaps Sarah was right and the man was merely infatuated, harmless.
    Then John remembered the bruise on Sarah’s wrist that had deepened in the days since and the fear that had lingered in her eyes. He’d known Sarah from a girl. He, a few years older, had watched her grow, admired her spirit long before he’d thought of her in any other way; marked her fight her way from the shit-filled streets of their parish all the way to and through the doors of the Duke’s playhouse. He had never, not once, seen her as discomfited as when Sir Roland had gripped her so hard.
    No. The man must be warned off. Maybe even punished, just a little. With all the plays that had to be learned and put on, John knew he would not get another chance till next Sunday, and maybe not then. He’d walked this far, damn it; he could walk a little farther—and did, across Newington Green to the meeting-house door.
    “Greetings, Brother. God’s blessing upon you.”
    After a few questions to establish his character—having played a Saint onstage, John could utter the terms with the required fervour—the large doorman waved him inside, others crowding inbehind. The door was soon shut upon them. Well, he thought, seeking a place toward the rear, it has been a while since I attended any worship. Even the Anglican to which Sarah sometimes dragged him. He would be seeing none of that ceremony here. He knew that the Acts of Uniformity and Conventicles forbad any but the Church of England’s worship within the city—but that did not prevent nonconformists meeting there in secret. More often, though, the banned sects gathered in outlying villages such as Newington, where they had a better chance of escaping notice and persecution.
    Is this my chance to make my peace with God? To ask his forgiveness for my trespasses to come? He fingered his razor. “Thy will be done,” he murmured.
    Brothers were hushing one another as a Saint stepped into the pulpit. John looked at the man—who seemed for a moment to be looking right back at him. He had cropped hair the colour of autumn straw, and thin eyebrows visible only where they were slashed through with white. His nose had been violently broken at some stage, a scar across the bridge. Even at that distance, his eyes appeared pale. I know you, thought John, slipping into the shadows by a pillar. But where from? When he looked up again, the man had raised his arms and his gaze was above the congregation.
    “ ‘Our Father,’ ” the man began, “ ‘who art in heaven …’ ”
    The words were universal and John spoke his lines with passion, joined in the amens as loud as any. As the chorus of them