ANNE SHARPE RELAXED in the warm water of the bathtub, and listened to the prattle of the enormous black woman who bustled around the room.  Anne could hardly understand a word the woman was saying, although she seemed to be speaking English; her lilting rhythms and odd pronunciations were utterly strange.  The black woman was saying something about what a kind man Governor Almont was.  Anne Sharpe had no concern about Governor Almont's kindness.  She had learned at an early age how to deal with men.

She closed her eyes, and the singsong speech of the black woman was replaced in her mind by the tolling of church bells.  She had come to hate that monotonous, ceaseless sound, in London.

Anne was the youngest of three children, the daughter of a retired seaman turned sailmaker in Wapping.  When the plague broke out near Christmastime, her two older brothers had taken work as watchmen.  Their jobs were to stand at the doors of infected houses and see that the inhabitants inside did not leave the residence for any reason.  Anne herself worked as a sick-nurse for several wealthy families.

With the passing weeks, the horrors she had seen became merged in her memory.  The church bells rang day and night.  The cemeteries everywhere became overfilled; soon there were no more individual graves, but the bodies were dumped by the score into deep trenches, and hastily covered over with white lime powder and earth.  The dead-carts, piled high with bodies, were hauled through the streets; the sextons paused before each dwelling to call out, "Bring out your dead."  The smell of corrupted air was everywhere.

So was the fear.  She remembered seeing a man fall dead in the street, his fat purse by his side, clinking with money.  Crowds passed by the corpse, but none would dare to pick up the purse.  Later the body was carted away, but still the purse remained, untouched.

At all the markets, the grocers and butchers kept bowls of vinegar by their wares.  Shoppers dropped coins into the vinegar; no coin was ever passed hand to hand.  Everyone made an effort to pay with exact change.

Amulets, trinkets, potions, and spells were in brisk demand.  Anne herself bought a locket that contained some foul-smelling herb, but which was said to ward off the plague.  She wore it always.

And still the deaths continued.  Her eldest brother came down with the plague.  One day she saw him in the street; his neck was swollen with large lumps and his gums were bleeding.  She never saw him again.

Her other brother suffered a common fate for watchmen.  While guarding a house one night, the inhabitants locked inside became crazed by the dementia of the disease.  They broke out and killed her brother with a pistol-ball in the course of their escape.  She only heard of this; she never saw him.