The Key: Impossible Tale #1

December, 1348

Apr 29, 2025

Until now, Jack Holland’s family had enjoyed God’s favor during these final months of 1348, when the London churchyards heaved with corpses, stacked five and six to a grave. Their neighbors had been judged and found wanting, sickening and dying within days, while his mother, brother, and he had remained well. Marjory next door had spread the report after her baby died that the Holland family had made a pact with the Devil, keeping them untouched by the Great Mortality. But then Marjory fell ill the following day, and the rumor died with her. Clearly she had been punished for the slander.

On this December day, however, God had removed his favor from them. Jack barreled out the door into the fetid street, uncertain where to run. The familiar stink was a relief compared to the stench of the room where Jack had just left his mother in the first throes of the pestilence.

“Find Robert,” she had wheezed, writhing in her bed with the pain. What had his precious mother done to deserve God’s wrath? Jack had felt safe before, believing that her goodness protected them — and now nothing stood between him and despair.

Clutching the bag of amulets he wore round his neck, he leapt over the putrid gutter and averted his eyes from a row of small bodies awaiting collection. He would not linger but knew they were the blacksmith’s children, taken ill that week. The memory of their gambols in the Priory fields punched the breath from him. What would happen when everyone he knew was dead?

Jack ran down the middle of the street — empty on a Sunday afternoon — and saw the baker’s wife leaning against her doorpost with her baby.

“Goody Baker, have you seen my brother Robert?” Jack called as he passed.

She shook her head as if nothing mattered anymore. Jack glanced at the baby she held, limp on her arm. Death chased him further down the street.

An inebriated man lurched from a doorway into a mess of dung. He regarded his feet philosophically.

Jack slowed enough to ask him, “Master Wright, have you seen my brother Robert?”

The man focused on Jack dancing with impatience before him. “I do not believe I have seen the physician this sennight, young Jack. And with Death threatening, I may never see him again.”

“I thank you,” Jack said and shot down the street thinking, Where will I find him? He could be anywhere.

The whole City of London, crammed within the refortified Roman wall, had too many doors to count. Jack tore down St. Martin’s Lane past St. Martin le Grand whose cemetery stank with the dead, scurried left on Newgatestrete, and paused on Westchep, the widest street in London. Here the City’s buying and selling clambered during the week — before the Great Pestilence. These days, fewer shoppers and sellers made a desultory trade; and on the Sabbath, not a soul stirred.

The bells of St. Paul’s Cathedral began to sound and struck Jack with inspiration. Robert hadn’t attended their parish church for the past month. Instead, he had worshipped at St. Paul’s each week to steal a few moments’ conversation with the beautiful Isabelle, illegitimate daughter of Sir Walter de Mauny. What if Robert had somehow managed to escort her home? It was a meager chance, but Jack had no other ideas.

The December light had already begun to die like everything else — too soon. He sprinted west on Paternosterstrete, parallel to the long nave of St. Paul’s. A few mangy dogs looked up from their meal of something — Jack turned away as he rounded the corner, continued south, and paused for breath at Ludgatstrete.

Ludgate, the southern- and westernmost gate in London’s wall, stood three stories tall ahead of him. Beyond the gate’s arch, Sir Walter de Mauny’s mansion lay outside the City wall, away from the noise and bustle. If Robert had gone to Sir Walter’s estate, a City gatekeeper would have seen him.

Jack ran the final hundred yards to Ludgate and hailed his brother’s friend William, still alive and standing at his post.

“Will!” Jack called. “Have you seen Rob?”

“Jack! You live another day!”

“Gratias Deo. Have you seen Rob?”

“He passed through a quarter hour since.”

“In or out?” Jack’s pulse raced as he caught his breath, overjoyed to hear rumor of his quarry.

“Out. Headed toward the de Mauny mansion. The daughter of the house has taken ill,” William added with a suggestive eyebrow.

“Thanks,” Jack called over his shoulder, already running through the archway.

“Jack, the gate closes at sundown — you’ll be locked out!”

“You’ll let me back in, Will!” Jack said and was down the road beyond the wall, leaping over holes and ruts, nearly twisting his ankle as he passed a cart stuck in the icy mud, softened by the donkey’s struggle. He ran across the bridge that spanned the Flete River, glancing at the nearby prison whose stench turned his head even on the winter air.

Just ahead lumbered an empty cart making progress despite the deplorable road, and Jack climbed aboard to catch his breath. The cart jostled away from the City on the long Fletestrete that became Le Straunde, crowded with shops and taverns, on its way to the King’s Palace at Westminster. South of this road, facing the River Thames, were the mansions of London’s grand churchmen and peers. Edward III had gifted one of these princely estates — and many other parcels of land — to his favorite soldier of fortune, Sir Walter de Mauny, whose daughter now lay ill.

As he jolted along, Jack recalled his mother’s words to his brother a few days since: “You’ll break your heart over her, Rob. She’s not for you. What though she’s a natural daughter? No matter. She is Sir Walter’s first child, and he adores her. And remember her stepmother — a Countess in her own right — granddaughter to King Edward I! They’ll never allow a lowly physician to marry into their family.”

Robert Holland, physician — trained at Cambridge and the University of Paris — had forced himself past the serving woman at Sir Walter de Mauny’s door and ordered an awed chambermaid to take him, in his professional capacity, to the bedroom of her mistress Isabelle. The door where the maid left him upstairs was marked with a strip of black linen to warn of the pestilence. Rob removed a clean cloth and a vial from his satchel, soaked the cloth in vinegar, and tied it around his face. He then said a prayer to St. Luke for protection — and opened the door.

Even through the vinegar, he could sense the repellent air and strode to the shutters, throwing them open to the breeze from the Thames. The last of the sunset shone red across the water where another day died. He lit a candle on the table and steeled himself to look at Isabelle. She writhed on the mattress of her four poster bed, the curtains pulled back, bed linens twisted and fouled, her hands balled into fists.

“No,” she said in a desiccated voice, turning from the light that seemed to pain her. “You cannot have it.”

He gathered his wits and approached the bed to feel her skin — hot and dry. He checked the pulse at her wrist — slow. Summoning all his competence, he felt for lumps at her neck, under her arms, and — “forgive me,” he murmured — at her groin. No swellings.

“No!” she said again. “You’ll not find it.”

Robert became still as he considered her delirium. He opened one of her eyes and caught his breath. The pupil was fully dilated even in the candlelight. This was not the pestilence.

Leaping from the back of the cart, Jack ran under a gatehouse and down a lane toward the de Mauny mansion and shivered against the chill from the Thames.

“Has the physician been here?” he asked a groom.

“Aye. I stabled his horse just now.”

Jack ran toward the magnificent timber mansion and pounded on the front door.

A serving woman opened a hatch and peered at Jack. Her expression turned to disgust as she observed his bespattered clothes. “No begging here. Get you gone.”

“I’m no beggar! I must speak to my brother! The physician who just came here. I must speak with him!”

“You can’t come in here like that! Run round to the well and clean yourself.” She shut the hatch with a snap.

He heard a nearby church bell calling the living to Vespers and thought of his mother alone in her suffering. Jack stumbled to the side of the house, determined to find a way in and saw his opportunity. A maid crouched beside the well washing a cauldron, her back to the open kitchen door. Jack slipped inside.

The warmth of the kitchen fire shocked him as he left the night air. He crept through the room, across a courtyard and into another door left ajar where he heard a woman’s aristocratic tones. He flattened himself in the shadow of a large cabinet and listened.

“Who summoned the physician?” she said in a low, angry voice to an unseen companion.

“No one, madam! He just appeared real sudden-like at the door. He’ll know what we done! We’ll be found out.”

“He must have heard of her illness at Mass. He is always there, waiting to speak to her.”

They stood silently in the gloaming, unseen by anyone but God.

“She’ll be dead by tonight,” the first speaker said with decision. “He said the fever would resemble the pestilence — that no one would question — but this man is no fool. We must work quickly.”

Jack couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Could this be the Countess discussing the mistress Isabelle? If they had harmed her, then an avenging angel had summoned his brother. No barber-surgeon was he — Robert knew everything.

The servant whimpered and mumbled incoherent prayers.

“Hush. God will not help you now. You must find that key or all is for nought. I know she keeps the deed in her alabaster chest. We mustn’t break the lock — Sir Walter would know.”

“Must you have the deed, Madam?” the servant began to sob. “What will it matter if we’re in Hell?”

“That land in Kent belonged to my grandfather. The king gave it to your master because he is married to me. Sir Walter had no right to give it to that wench. If we don’t reclaim the deed, he’ll give it to another of his bastards. It must go to my son. We will find the key before Sir Walter returns. Go.”

They left Jack alone in the room that now crackled with urgency. Jack crept from his shadow, found the great staircase and hastened to the upper floor. A rush of relief washed through him when he reached the top of the stairs.

Robert stood in the doorway of a room marked with a scrap of black fabric. “Bring hot water, fresh towels, and a jug of ale. Quick as you can,” he was saying to a trembling servant. When Robert saw his brother, he pulled down the vinegar-soaked cloth he always wore when visiting the sick. “Jack! How did —?

“Rob! I found you! It’s mum! She’s —”

“I could not have asked for a better helper. God sees all and sent you.”

“Rob, you must come! Mum is ill! The lumps are already swelling!”

Robert stilled at those words and closed his eyes. He weighed his abilities against his limitations and said, “We will go to mother when this is done and Sir Walter returns. We will be with mother tonight to comfort her.” He laid a hand on his little brother’s shoulder. “You know that I am powerless against the pestilence, Jack. God alone can save her — so pray.”

Jack’s eyes filled with tears, and he nodded.

“Good man. Now come inside and help me.”

Jack recoiled from the stench, and Rob bent down to whisper in his ear.

“It’s not the pestilence. There’s evil at work here. You have your amuleta?”

Jack clutched the bag around his neck.

“Good man. Come. I must help Isabelle while you search the room,” Rob said, building up the fire against the cold.

“What am I looking for?”

“Anything unusual. I need a clew to lead me through this.” Rob took a charred piece of wood from the fireplace, broke off the blackest chunk and began to grind it in a bowl while Jack searched, keeping his eyes from the delirious figure on the bed.

Jack loved treasure hunting. He’d found his amulets — pendants and coins with faces from foreign lands — in the muddy foreshore of the Thames at low tide, as well as in the dirt of the City where old houses had been removed. This quest distracted his aching heart that feared for his mother and the girl writhing a few feet from him. He prayed for them as he combed the room.

There in the corner stood the ghostly alabaster chest. It must have cost a fortune — the lifetime earnings of many laborers.

Jack whispered, “Rob, does she have a key round her neck?”

“Pardon?”

“A key. Does she have one on a chain around her neck?”

“No.”

Two servants brought the requested items to the door and would not enter. Jack took the towels, hot water, and ale and closed the door with his foot. He whispered, “The Countess has done something to Mistress Isabelle and says she’ll die tonight. I overheard her say that she must find a key before Sir Walter arrives home.” Perhaps while searching for Rob’s clew, Jack could find Mistress Isabelle’s key, too — then he could hide it for her until she recovered.

Rob poured a little ale into the bowl with the black powder to make a swill and said, “I suspect poison. Keep searching.”

He stepped to the bedside and pried Isabelle’s jaw open, pouring the black sludge into her mouth as he prayed a Latin prayer. Isabelle choked and sputtered, spilling some of the muck down her neck, and eventually swallowed.

“What are you doing?” said Jack, horrified.

“The charcoal may bind the poison if a prayer is said while swallowing it. Have you found anything yet?”

“Not yet with these rushes on the floor.”

“Make a pile of them. Shake them out to see if anything drops,” Rob said, attempting to sop the charcoal mess with a towel.

“Isn’t this—? Is this important?” Jack asked, picking up a small, black berry from the floor. He held it out to his brother who stared for several moments and then scoffed in amazement.

Rob held it to the light. “Do you know what this is, Jack?”

Jack nodded. “It’s a nightshade berry.”

“This is a miracle.” Rob pressed his eyes in wonder. “Gloria Deo.” He began to move quickly, rinsing the blackened bowl with hot water and pouring the charcoal out the window while talking to Jack. “Yes, this is nightshade, which I taught you never to eat when you saw it growing by the wayside. Given in quantity — it is poisonous.” Indicating Isabelle, he said, “It causes fever, dry skin, delirium, dilation of the eyes, eventual paralysis and death.” He took a vial out of his satchel that contained three seeds the size of runner beans. “These,” he said, “are ordeal beans.” He shook his head in disbelief. “They were given to me yesterday by Brother Jonah at St. John’s Priory. He returned a fortnight ago from a pilgrimage to Rome — where he met a man from Egypt who had acquired these beans from southern regions unknown. Taken whole, they will kill a man. Taken in part,” he said as he chipped off a small portion of one dried bean, “it is the only known antidote to nightshade.”

Rob ground the bean fragment into powder, added two drops of ale to make a paste, and scraped the paste into Isabelle’s mouth. He chased it with some ale, which made her sputter, but she swallowed it.

Jack stood at the foot of the bed and watched her, expecting her to rise like St. Peter’s mother-in-law when Christ healed her. “What happens now?” he asked.

“Now we wait. If the cure doesn’t kill her soon, she may recover — God willing.”

As they waited, Jack’s thoughts returned to his mother, and he said, “Why did God send the pestilence to mum, Rob? What did she do wrong?” And then he asked in a small voice, “Is God punishing me?”

“He’s punishing and saving us, Jack,” Rob said as he watched Isabelle for any sign of change. “St. Luke writes about that in his Gospel. When the Tower of Siloam fell and killed 18 people, Our Lord asked his disciples if the 18 were more sinful than others who had survived.” He glanced at Jack. “Do you remember Christ’s answer? You’ve read the Latin in your studies, haven’t you?”

Jack nodded. “Our Lord said, ‘No, they were not more sinful. But unless you repent, you too will all perish.’”

“Yes, he compared us to a fig tree that fails to produce fruit and should be cut down. But in his mercy, God preserves us for another season — to give us opportunity to flourish for his glory.” Rob winced as Isabelle thrashed on the bed. “Don’t be afraid, Jack.” He took a deep breath to dull the pain of losing his mother and Isabelle. “The same God who controls life and death — he died so that we could live.”

The brothers waited until Rob noticed some infinitesimal change in Isabelle’s face and counted her pulse. He met Jack’s eye while feeling her temperature, and his lips softened into a smile. Isabelle’s breathing calmed as her entire frame seemed to relax. Her fists released, and Jack spied a glint of gold between her fingers. He came near and opened her hand where he discovered —

a key.

Readers!

This month’s story is part of a special event hosted by Holly A Brown, author of Medieval Musings. She invited writers of historical fiction to compose a short mystery of less than 3,000 words set in any time period — in memory of writer CJ Samson, who died on this day last year. If you haven’t read him yet, start with Dissolution, the first of his Tudor mysteries in the Shardlake series. I enjoyed it!

Reading inspires writing, and I want to highlight some writers who inspired details in my story this month. Mathew Lyons wrote a post on the beauties of alabaster in the 14th century. I highly recommend his interesting Substack The Broken Compass. And Olivia, the writer of weird medieval guys, wrote an entertaining etymology of the word “clue” that you may have stumbled over in my story. She’s hilarious.

Let me know in the comments if you’re curious about the historical details in the story — some characters existed in history, others are imagined. Medieval medicine is a fascinating subject, as well. I’m bursting to share what I know, so proceed with caution.

Kate Susong

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