The Lockdown

1665 stands out as a dark moment in London history. The whole city is in quarantine because the Bubonic Plague also known as the Black Death is raging. You can leave the city walls only with a Certificate of good health. Now, to get this document, you have to undergo a medical examination in the hearing room of the City Council led by a doctor dressed in a frightening suite: an ankle length overcoat, gloves, boots and a wide-brimmed hat protecting from infections. And, a curved bird's beak mask with glass openings in the eyes filled with enough lavender and camphor to bear the stench of potential buboes. Once the Mayor is given the green light, he signs the precious pass that he slips through the sliding window of a glass cage within which he presides and feels safe.

Hence, TOM BLOODWORTH, the Lord Mayor of London is the most powerful person in charge, second to the King. Still, despite all the measures taken, the Mayor shows signs of contamination and hides them. Then, without his knowledge, his own wife MARY treats the plague-stricken people with a treatment based on spices, herbs, and ointments made with arsenic, antimony, oil, ammonia and soap liniment. She also uses chicken rumps, dried lizards and toads’ skins, which are typical of a witch apparatus.

The events reach dramatic proportions for the Mayor and his wife when Tom’s first wife ESTHER denounces Mary as a witch. As a loyal King’s servant, Tom faces a cruel dilemma. Ultimately, his choices lead him in the very heart of the pest house of a family he has himself sentenced to forced seclusion and certain death where, with the help of Mary, he struggles to save a young boy from dying. Only to discover a secret hidden by Esther since their divorce – the poor child is his son!