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That's one of the reasons I am going to London,' I declared in hushed tones. ‘His Excellency the Cardinal has asked me to follow this Dr Mirabilis round the country and expose him for the charlatan he is.'
    Oh, heigh nonny no: the monk accepted every word I said. I spent a very comfortable night at the priory. I ate a hearty breakfast and left a bottle of my elixir for weak legs in lieu of payment.
    'Oh,' I added as I mounted my horse in the courtyard, tell Father Prior that I bear messages from Master Benjamin Daunbey. Roger Shallot will not be coming here. The poor man has had a sudden conversion and decided to join the Cistercians at Mount Grace in Yorkshire.'
    I shook the guest-master's hand and galloped out of the priory, heading like an arrow straight for the fleshpots of London. I arrived there two days later and took chambers in a tavern, the Mitre and Pig, which stands between two brothels in Southwark, overlooking the Thames. I ate heartily, bedded one of the wenches, and plotted what I should do. Naturally I spent a great deal of the time in the taproom searching out the lie of the land, but the news I heard there chilled my blood. A terrible sickness was sweeping through the city. Sudden and violent, it gave people the cramps followed by sweating and vomiting. Buboes appeared in the armpits and groin and, once this happened, death followed in a matter of days.
    'Oh yes,' an old tinker assured me, 'they be dropping like flies across the river. The King, the great Cardinal, and all the Court have gone to Windsor.' He lowered his voice, whispering through where his teeth had once been. The city is going to die. Satan has risen from Hell to collect his own. People say this is a curse from God. A plague sent to punish their sins.'
    I let the old fool prattle on. To me London was not the mouth of Hell but a veritable paradise: the streets were packed with morris dancers, hobby horses, minstrels, men in armour and trumpeters. Nevertheless, next morning when I crossed London Bridge, through the gatehouse and past the chapel of St Thomas a Becket, I noticed a difference. There were not so many carts. Nor the crowds who stand and gape on either end of the bridge at the severed heads and quartered, pickled limbs of traitors.
    As I walked deeper into the city I realised the old tinker was not a fool but a prophet. Entire streets had been closed, sealed off with bars, wooden railings and chains: dark, gloomy tunnels where the refuse had not been collected but simply burnt and left to smoulder. An occasional flicker of flame showed through the heavy pall of smoke which hung there, trapped by the overhanging houses.
    In Cheapside the markets and stalls were empty; not even the whores touted for business. A whining beggar on the corner of an alleyway in the Poultry told me how the rich and powerful had fled the city, following the King and Court for the fresh air of the countryside. I could scarcely believe it. I wandered back down towards the river, but the cranes and wharves were empty. The fine shops and houses of the merchants were locked and barred, their windows shuttered. So I went to the area around Newgate, always a busy place, the justices and their bailiffs forever carrying out sentence. In the Great Beast's London you could be hanged for stealing a hawk's egg, letting out a pond, or buggery (though that was rare, you had to catch them red-handed). Or for cutting a purse, as well as conjuring, sorcery, witchcraft and all those other roguish hobbies. The great yard in front of the prison doors, however, was deserted. I found the same at Smithfield. London had become an eerie city, where smoke from burning fires wafted like ghosts amongst the houses. I called into a tavern. The landlord stood far off and inspected me most carefully.
    'Are you hale and well?' he asked.
    'As merry-legged as you are!' I retorted.
    Well, there's nothing the kitchen can offer you!' he snapped.
    I told him not to be surly, and demanded a cup