Dark Aemilia (14 page)

I gird myself. ‘Mr Shakespeare.’

He bows.

‘I’m – I have no wish to be here.’

‘And I have no wish to see you here.’ He smiles with stately cordiality.

‘My boy is hiding here, with your Desdemona.’

His mouth tightens. ‘Oh…
your
son, is he? I saw a silly knave with Tom.’

‘He
is
a silly knave, but I love him dearly.’

‘Your son,’ he says. ‘I often…’

‘What?’

‘My own boy is dead.’ He looks away, frowning. ‘Hamnet.’

‘Oh – the poor child! I’m sorry for your loss.’

‘Yes.’ Now he is examining his wrist, as if he had some lines wrote on it. ‘My wife… They sent a letter, but he was buried by the time I got to Stratford. There was heavy rain and… the way was hard.’

‘I didn’t know…’ Will still smells of ink, I notice, as a butcher smells of blood. ‘God bless his soul.’

‘He was eleven.’

‘Henry is nearly ten. I mean… I would die if anything…’

‘Of course,’ he says. Then, ‘Henry. Ha!’

Our eyes meet, then jerk away.

Will reaches out, and touches my shoulder with his finger as if he’s making sure I’m solid flesh. I feel a breath of longing, as if a ghost had stroked the skin between my thighs.

I brush his hand away.

‘Do not dare to touch me. I am sorry for poor Hamnet, but don’t imagine that I will ever forget your foul words and accusations.’

He withdraws his hand. ‘Your kind words about my son don’t absolve you of your guilt.’

‘My
guilt
?’

‘You are a faithless whore.’

‘There’s not enough gold in all of Cheapside to make me
your
whore for a single night.’

He laughs. ‘Who said I’d pay a farthing? You’re not such a tasty morsel now, mistress. I can feast nightly on a prettier dish.’

I think,
He loathes me. I am repulsive to him. So be it, so be it;
I shall not set eyes on him again
. Standing straighter, I look him in the eye. ‘Oh, surely. The anointed sovereign of sighs and groans. What fortunate young women, to be sweated over by a lewd old versifier like yourself.’

‘Fortunate indeed. I see your mind is still sharp, even if your eyes are growing dull.’

Over his shoulder, I can see the actors parading about the tiring-room, doing a mock pavane. I must find Henry, and be gone.

‘You are too arrogant, sir. Putting yourself above me with your cruel words. You think that honest folk are like players, running to and fro at the command of your invention? No. We are living beings, closer to angels than your shouting, painted shams.’

‘Honest? A bawd like you is honest? Most entertaining! Now you are after Armin’s job: you aim to be a clown…’

‘Yes, sir. Honest now, and honest since you have known me. A woman may not be a jester, but a poet may be a fool.’

‘I saw what I saw. You were false to me!’

‘You
saw
me with Wriothesley. But you are all eyes and no sight. No matter – it’s nothing to me now. And you have more than paid me back, sir, with your wicked, poisonous lines. You
turned your pain to wormwood poetry, and set every fibre of your genius to the task of breaking my heart!’

A shout goes up as John Heminge comes in with flagons of ale, followed by two boy players carrying trenchers loaded with fried collops, scented with frizzled fat, together with rabbit, humble pie, flat round manchets and other nunchions and snacks.

‘Let us celebrate!’ cries Burbage. He turns, and there’s Tom, in his scarlet, and next to him I see my own son at last, who had slyly hid himself in the middle of the dancing men. Burbage waits till everyone has gathered round him, and quietened, and filled their cups. I stand quite still, hoping that, if I don’t look at Will, he’ll vanish into the crowd.

‘This is a proud day for all of us, we merry Lord Chamberlain’s Men, for we have two new triumphs to celebrate.’ The whites of Burbage’s eyes flash in his black face, which is streaked with dancing-sweat. ‘We are, being players, part of one greater whole, with no leader, no prince to quell us, nor cunning-man to muddle us. We are brothers, and the success of one is the success of all.’ I see that he is close to tears with the beauty of it.

Another speaker, smooth and cocksure. ‘We are all as wise and foolish as each other, and in that lies our infinite wisdom. Till we reach the end of it.’ It’s Robert Armin. There is laughter, then silence. Everyone is waiting to hear what Burbage, the leader who would not be leader, will say next.

‘First, we must celebrate our dear friend Will, and his new play, which is as sad and stately as we could wish. And which cannot fail.’

Hoots and laughter. ‘Put money in thy purse!’ calls someone.

‘Most poetical and bloody,’ cries Armin. ‘The Blackamoor will get us gold.’

‘And second – we have a new man among us, a beardless boy, but one who gave us a performance tonight that shows he is surely one of us. Tom Flood, you were a fine Aemilia!’ There are more cheers, and someone makes Tom stand upon a stool. He
takes off his wig, and twists it in his hands, and bows in
mock-ceremony
. His face is pink, his dark curls fall into his eyes.

‘Speech!’ calls Will, beside me, and I catch his eye, and am stabbed right through. It is the strangest feeling. I know him from my own mirror. Each time my face has looked out, it was Will I saw there. And now I look at him and see my own face in the glass.

I have to leave. I turn and make my way through the laughter and shouting, and Tom beginning to say something, and being drowned out by his fellow players. I find Henry, and clench my hand firmly around his arm.

‘We are off,’ I tell him. ‘And for once you will be beaten raw for this.’

But Will stands before me when we reach the door. His eyes flash from me, to Henry, then back again.

‘An entrance is an entrance, and so a turn must follow,’ he says. ‘You have a part to play, now you have returned.’ His shirt is undone beneath his doublet; the dark hairs of his chest are caught in a thick gold chain. He did not have this chain when last I touched that hidden skin. Who touches him now? The Stratford housewife? A pert mistress, peachier than me? I hear a voice:
You are mine, mine. You are me
.
We are joined, for good or ill
. Did someone speak? I am sick and giddy.

‘Goodbye, Will. This is your world, your “stage”. These are your people. Make your riddles, strut your words – none of this can interest me.’ I have my arm round Henry, who is squirming to break free.

‘It is not finished,’ Will says. His eyes seem to deepen. ‘You know that, just as I do.’

‘What is not?’ asks Henry.

‘The ale,’ I say. ‘They’ve not yet drunk the ale.’

When we get home, Alfonso is out. I wait till Henry is asleep, then I go to my chamber and lock the door. With a great effort, I push the bed aside, then scrabble back the rushes. There is a loose board beneath. I lift it up, and thrust my hand into the dusty floor-space. There it is. A bulging leather pouch. I pull it out. This is where I keep the gold coins left over from my dowry. Hidden from my spouse, of course, who cannot be trusted with three farthings.

Spreading my skirts, I tip the contents into my lap. Yet what is this? The flat shapes that tumble out lie heavy on my skirts. But they are grey stones, pebbles from the river shore. Where is my cherished hoard of gold and silver? Where is my money? I feel inside the bag again. Empty. I shake out my skirts, letting the stones roll among the rushes, and plunge my arm inside the hole once more. All I find is a dried-up spider, in a winding sheet of its own legs, and a tiny, shrivelled mouse.

Then I think – perhaps the coins have fallen out? Perhaps they are hidden in the dust and scrimmage. I go downstairs, and fetch a fish-hammer and a candle. I take up another floorboard, panting as I work at the rusty iron nails. Then another, ripping it with my hands, tearing my fingers on the splintered wood. Blood drips on to my clothes. I smear the sweat off my face, light the candle and lower it into the floor-space. The flickering light reveals only dirt and floor-beams. The space is empty. But no! There, in the far corner. A small shape… I extend my arm,
groping till I feel something with the tips of my fingers. I reach further, another inch, grasp it and pull it out.

It is a tiny pewter box, round and smooth. I prise open the lid and tip it up. Nine little dice fall into the palm of my hand. There must be a good reason why they have been hidden away so carefully. I examine them one by one. They are cheats’ dice. Three are marked only with low numbers, three with high numbers, and three are weighted so they will fall the same way every time. They must belong to my husband. He has found my stash of money and gambled it away. But Alfonso is not just a fool, he is a trickster too. Not only has he lost my money, he has tried to swindle others out of theirs. Of course he is too stupid to succeed in such an enterprise. If he were any use as a cozener, he would have more than a bag of river stones to show for his dishonesty.

I sit hunched on the floor, not caring for my spoiled dress, thinking. I stare at the feeble candle-flame, the little light it throws on my little life. I see myself as I once was, listening as Lord Hunsdon talked, and, as the years went by, talking as he listened. He told me only the Queen had a better head for affairs of state than me. And that my Latin was a match for hers. He said I could have been an Oxford man, if I had been a man at all. And then he built me this boxed-in house and set me up with an addle-pate of a spouse.

It is true that Alfonso was pleased to have me, even though I was pregnant with another man’s child. He saw that he was getting a handsome bargain. I would not have been kept so long by Hunsdon if I did not have a pretty face and a whore’s skill in the bedchamber, and I came with a good dowry. He saw in me a lifetime of good fucking, and at least a year of good spending. And truth to tell, this is exactly what he got. To his credit, there is not an ounce of malice in the man, and he loves Henry as if he were his own child. In fact, such is his ability to see only what doesn’t cause him pain, I believe he’s come to feel that Henry is his natural son. So he is happy.

Only my poetry makes him angry. Property does not write poems. Property sits at home and puts her skill to churning butter. He seems to think my writing not only unwomanly, but also sacrilegious. ‘What monstrous thing is this!’ he cries, when he finds me scratching out a verse or scrawling down some passing thought. ‘Play your virginals, if you want to show us how clever you are! Leave the words to the wits. God preserve us, get some food before me!’ I hide my precious pages in the straw mattress, in case he throws them on the fire.

This is my lot. Wrong sex, wrong lovers, wrong place. The universe is neat as an egg, the layers held like white and yolk within its shell. I am neither white nor yolk, fish nor fowl. And now – what is my line of business now? If I could crawl into that hole, wrap myself in a death-caul like the shrunken spider and never be thought of again, I would do so.

But there is a cry from Henry’s room. I put the dice-box in my pocket, unlock my door and hurry to his bedside.

He hugs me, as if he were still an infant. ‘Mother!’ he says. ‘I dreamed that you were dead!’

I smooth his hair. He smells of smoke and sugar.

‘My little one.’ I kiss his cheek. ‘Never fear. I’m not dead yet.’

‘Nor me,’ says Henry. He pulls away, wipes his eyes and looks at me. ‘We shan’t die for a while longer, either, shall we? God doesn’t need us yet.’

‘No, He doesn’t.’

‘And I am very sorry.’

‘For what?’ I have almost forgotten his flight to the
tiring-room
.

‘For – all my bad ways.’

‘You are just a boy, Henry.’ I touch his cheek.

‘I will stop all my running away.’

‘Yes.’

‘God would like that,’ he says, sagely.

‘Yes. You would make God very happy.’

I draw the counterpane tight around him before I close the curtains, making him a little tent, all snug.

By the time Alfonso comes home, it is midnight, and the trumpets have long since sounded the curfew at the City walls. I’m sitting outside the house, wrapped in a woollen cloak. It is a clear, chilly night and the crescent moon is an arc of silver, brighter than my missing coin. Alfonso is tottering and singing to himself, his recorder slung over his shoulders in its carrying case. I know the tune; it was composed by my uncle, Robert Johnson: ‘The Witch’s Dance’, a favourite at Court. My husband comes slowly, slowly, weaving this way and that, whistling and humming and laughing, at one point almost falling in the town-ditch, at another sitting on the ground for several moments, tracing his own
palm-lines
in the moonlight.

When he sees me, he seems to be delighted, and not in the least surprised to find me waiting in the street.

‘Aemilia!’ he calls. ‘Lady Aemilia! I am blessed in my work, yet even more so in my spouse.’ He comes up and pulls me to my feet. ‘Oh, wife!
Houses and riches are the inheritance of the fathers, but a prudent wife is from the Lord
.’

Alfonso is not devout by nature, and loves God most when he’s in his cups. ‘You have been at the Malmsey again, I see.’

‘
May thy fountain be blessed, and rejoice with the wife of thy youth
!’ he declaims, squeezing me tightly.

‘Leave me be, husband.’

‘
Let her breasts satisfy thee at all times and be thou ravished always with her love
.’ He tries to land a kiss upon my lips, but I twist my head away and he slobbers on the doorpost instead. ‘
And why wilt thou, my son, be ravished with a strange woman, and embrace the bosom of a stranger
. Oh, woe is me!’ He stares up adoringly at the door lintel.

‘What have you done with it?’ I ask, pushing him away.

‘With what?’ He turns, unsteadily, and puts one hand out to balance himself against the wall. ‘Always questions, questions. Such a liveliness of mind. It doesn’t augur well, my chuck. You should do more spinning.’

‘My
money
, Alfonso. Where is my money? Did you lose it at the tables?’

‘You have money?’

‘Not any more.’

‘Then how am I to blame for taking it?’

I grab him by the shoulders and shake him hard. ‘Are you really so dull and brain-sickly? I
had
money, and now it is gone. Now all that remains is a pewter pot of tricksters’ dice!’

‘What are you saying?’

‘That you are the cozener of your own wife and child, you worthless piece of scum!’

‘Worthless… what? I know nothing of it.’

Disgusted, I begin pacing to and fro, too angry to keep still. ‘What’s more, I saw Inchbald today – or yesterday, I should rather say.’

‘Oh! How is the dainty little fellow? Did you wish him well from me?’

‘He told me we’ve paid no rent this year.’

‘God’s blood! The thieving scoundrel…’

‘He’ll be round tomorrow to collect what’s his. Or else he’ll take the house back.’

Alfonso closes his eyes as if making a difficult calculation. ‘Hmm. Now, what
was
the problem with friend Inchbald…? Perhaps there was a misunderstanding in our transaction. A tenacious fellow, we must give him that.’

I thrust my face close to his, ignoring his filthy tavern stench.

‘Husband.’

‘Yes?’

‘Are you not ashamed?’

‘Ashamed?’

‘Are you not a
man
?’

‘I do all a man can do! Who would do more is none!’

‘More? Who could do
less
?’ I tear at my hair. ‘Lord God! Help me! I am like an anchorite, walled in to pray and meet my doom!’

‘Mistress Lanyer, you are raving!’

‘Raving? The madness is that I walk about quite calmly, knowing I am done for! I will be a pauper, thrust upon the parish! I will end my days in public view, a starving creature locked into a cage!’

Alfonso, pale already from strong drink, takes himself a shade whiter. ‘Calm yourself, wife. Show some respect.’

‘Respect! I may have to kill you.’

‘You forget, I went off to the Azores with Ralegh and poor Essex.’

‘And so did many others. You are meant to be a courtier, after all. The task was to make a name for yourself and seek preferment. Though, in your case, hope was set too high.’

‘I almost drowned. Your vaunting ambition will be the death of me.’

‘But you
lived
. More’s the pity. When I think of all the honest, proper men who go to their graves each day, while you continue with your doltish prancing.’

‘I was shot through the shirt – and scared out of my wits.’

‘The Queen should never have agreed to send you with them, you brought such evil luck. When they went the first time, without you, their ships came back loaded down with gold. But what
your
great expedition brought back was half a chest of bullion. And the Spanish all but landed at Penzance.’

His shoulders sag.

‘I tried. Strived.’ He frowns at the word, seemingly drunk enough to wonder if this is French. ‘I
strove
. Wanted to be made a knight, but only four were chosen.’

‘You are a worm, Alfonso. A liar, a boil, a plague sore and a turd.’

‘I am a
musician
. It’s my vocation…’ His eyes swivel. ‘My art, my heart… A musician can’t be called to order…’

‘To order? What are you talking about? All you had to do was pay the rent.’

‘Which is what I wanted. What they said they could do. They said I would win a crock of gold worth twenty times your little hoard…’

‘Who said?’

‘The women.’

‘
Women
?’

‘The three women with the magic dice.’

‘Save us! You think those dice have magic in them? You can buy them anywhere. They surely took you for the stupidest gull they ever saw.’

‘It seemed likely enough to me. They are from Persia. I thought, since I had lost some gold, I had better win it back for you.’

I roll my eyes. Then a thought strikes me. ‘Three women? What manner of women?’

‘Just – women. Of the common sort.’

‘Old or young?’

‘Both – a mixture.’

My heart beats harder. ‘But one was young and fair. Was she not? With yellow hair and white skin?’ I see her, clear as I see Alfonso, standing behind her rampart of evil sugar-plums.

He frowns again, pulls his recorder out, and is about to put it to his lips.

I snatch it from him. ‘Alfonso! What did she look like?’

‘I can’t recall.’

‘Where did you see them?’

His eyes are closing, and I shake his shoulder. ‘Where did you see them?’

He thinks for a moment. ‘Tyburn. Yes, most delightful spot. They told me they had business there.’ He closes his eyes, and recites, ‘
Who can find a virtuous woman? For her price is far
above rubies
.’ Then he tips gently sideways and falls asleep at an angle, like the fallen stone of a Roman archway. I take the recorder inside for safe keeping and leave him there, locking the door behind me. If the Lord is willing, my sotted spouse will roll into the ditch and drown in piss and offal before dawn.

I sit at the kitchen table, still wrapped in my cloak. The night deepens, the shadows fill the house and my cheap candle gutters as the tallow trickles down the shaft. But my thoughts and fears grow wild in the darkness. There is witchcraft behind all this. Something wicked stalks me. I must face down this dark magic with magic of my own.

Some women in my sorry state might sell their bodies. There are those who’d say my life with Hunsdon was a whore’s contract, so I have only a short distance to fall. But there is a world between having a royal protector and being humped by stinking tavern scum. I still have my wits, undimmed by time. I’m not done yet.