Dark Aemilia (27 page)

It is Holy Innocent’s Day, the fourth day of Christmas, and the snow lies thick upon the ground. This year the Thames has frozen over so thick and solid that people crowd on to it, making all kinds of sport. From Southwark to the Temple there are stalls, sideshows, merry-go-rounds, puppet plays and even donkey rides. (The miserable creatures trundle up and down the ice with straw slippers tied to their hooves to stop them skidding.) Fire-eaters and clownish acrobats slide this way and that, tumbling from their stilts. The City fathers have no jurisdiction over any of these frolics, as the river lies beyond old London’s walls, and they view it all with much begrudgery. The prentice-boys are quick to fill their snowballs with sharp stones and all manner of disagreeable items. Pigs and swans are roasting over crackling bonfires, and songs and laughter ring sharp against the aching air.

From my stool by the fireside, I can see through the diamond-mullioned window. The stars are points of ice over the frosted roofs and twisted chimneys. Cold creeps through the walls of cob and timber, freezing my back even as I warm my feet.

Alfonso reclines in his coffer-chair, his shapely legs sticking out in front of him, his recorder resting across his knees. He contemplates the glowing Yule log from beneath his drooping lashes. Henry sits at his feet, quiet for once, stroking Graymalkin. The cat is purring as he stares at the roast goose on the table. By
the hearth is a pitcher of winter toddy, bubbling pleasantly to a woolly white top. Our new servant, Marie Verre, has laced ivy into the idle spokes of her spinning wheel. She’s a foolish girl, seventeen years old, brimming with crazy laughter and tall tales, mostly of old France. (For she is the child of Huguenots who came from Paris after that foul Massacre on St Bartholomew’s Day.) In spite of her silliness, she is a quick worker, and between us we have put together a table that wouldn’t shame Whitehall Palace itself – though we could not match the quantity laid out for courtly gluttons.

A tap on the window. Henry jumps up and yells, ‘Tom Flood! Tom Flood! All hail, Tom Flood!’ Outside, a clear voice sings:

‘It is Tom! What a voice he has, finer than any fey chorister!’ says Henry, running to the hallway and flinging open the door. And Tom it is, and Anne Flood too, and a blast of Christmas wind and snow. Tom carries on singing while his mother shivers in her fur-edged tippet, her eyes popping with pride.

‘Isn’t it pretty?’ says Anne. ‘Robert Armin taught it to him. The mummers sing it at Coventry.’ I must say, it doesn’t strike me as a pretty carol, or a merry one.

I point to Anne’s lavish ermine trim. ‘Surely they can put you in the stocks for wearing that?’

I finger the mottled fur, and she slaps me cheerfully.

‘It’s just a bit of Yuletide flummery,’ she says. ‘But it suits me, do you not think? Besides, an ermine is no more than a winter stoat.’

‘I’m sure you have royal blood in you somewhere.’ I wonder how many times she’s sucked off Inchbald to earn enough to buy such an extravagant gewgaw. Or perhaps he gave it to her in fair exchange, for services rendered. Oh, Lord, now I can see her lips, pulsing away at his groin! And the white crumbs of her face powder, dusting his curly pubes.

She gleams with gratitude. ‘And you can see it in Tom. He’s more of a gentleman than any of those preening clowns at the Inns of Court.’

‘Most decidedly,’ say I, though this is scarcely saying much. Cross-dressing Moll Cutpurse herself is more gentlemanly than most young men of the law. ‘Come along inside, and let’s eat.’

‘Indeed, I am hungry as a winter wolf!’ says Tom. ‘Ravenous, Mistress Lanyer, and sorely ravaged by thirst.’ Spending time with the players has certainly improved his feeling for the drama when he is off-stage.

‘Really, Tom!’ says Anne. ‘Have you forgot your manners?’

‘I agree with Tom,’ says Henry. ‘I am dead with hunger. Let’s stuff ourselves with greasy goose and Christmas pudding till we burst like rotting gibbet-men!’

So we sit round the table and fall to with a vengeance, finishing off the meal with coffin-shaped mince pies stuffed
with currants, cloves and saffron – thirteen ingredients in all, in honour of Our Lord and His Apostles. We only stop when our bellies stick out roundly, though I am pleased to say that not one of us bursts open.

The drink makes Anne maudlin. ‘This day always makes me nervous,’ she says, making moon-eyes at her empty cup.

‘Oh, Anne, be more cheerful!’ say I. ‘Don’t just sit there maundering on. You can be miserable for Lent.’

‘Those poor Holy Innocents! I cannot bear it, the thought of losing a child.’

‘Poor indeed,’ says Tom. ‘The young are not always lucky.’

‘Indeed not,’ agrees his mother, dabbing off a tear.

Tom flushes deeper, anxious to be understood. ‘Not everyone is as fortunate as Nathan Field.’

‘Why is he so fortunate?’ I ask.

‘Only because everyone says he is the new Burbage!’

‘Is that so terrible?’

‘First he is the Queen of France! Oh, ladies, sirs, bow down before him! Then mad Ophelia, then love-sick Juliet – all in a fortnight!’

‘You are doing well enough,’ I say, ‘dressed like a jack-pudding every afternoon.’

‘They don’t take enough note of his talent,’ says Anne. ‘It galls me, but of course I am the last one who should speak up for him.’

‘Well, you are luckier than I am,’ says Henry. ‘My life is a vale of suffering, I swear! We are whipped and tortured and forced to speak dog Latin. There is no mercy for a schoolboy. I would rather be at the theatre, even if I were playing a joint-stool or half a slug.’

‘Henry, don’t be such a clodpate,’ I say. ‘Without Latin you will get nowhere in this life.’

Anne’s thoughts are still on Herod and his death-dealing soldiers.

‘Such little children slaughtered so cruelly,’ she says, as we gather close around the fire and Alfonso fills her cup. ‘To think of it! The screaming and the grief. You would run mad, would you not?’

I pat her knee. ‘Let’s not speak of such things now,’ I say. ‘We have survived the plague. We are together, warm and well and safe from harm.’

‘Amen to that,’ says Anne.

‘Amen, amen!’ says Henry, sagely. He is growing into a boisterous, impudent boy, and some say my softness to him has made him wayward. He has a habit of blurting out memories that I had thought long buried, as if he’s brooded on them till he is ready to unleash them on the world.

He picks at a mince pie with his fingers. ‘Mother wrote a play,’ he says. His voice is sly. ‘I found it.’

Tom’s eyes shine.

‘What’s it about?’

‘Witches,’ says Henry. ‘Witches and kings.’

‘Henry, what do you mean by this? Sneaking around and purloining my poetry! How dare you read my pages?’ I am glad I locked the grimoire in my safe-cupboard.

He pops the piece of meat into his mouth. ‘You can hardly blame me for wondering what comes of all that scribbling you do.’

‘I don’t “scribble” nearly enough, and thank you for making it sound like childish nonsense. Without my “scribbling” I’d go mad.’

‘It’s good,’ he says. ‘A most excellent piece of work. For a woman.’

‘The King has written a book on witchcraft,’ says Tom. ‘I have heard them speak about it at the Globe.’

‘Then he will find my story of blood and sorcery very foolish,’ say I. ‘Besides, Henry is wrong. It is not a tale of kings, but of queens.’

Alfonso begins to polish his recorder with his sleeve. ‘Queens! God preserve us!’

‘It concerns the tragedy of Lady Macbeth.’

‘Lord, wife, will you never learn?’

‘Don’t “wife” me, sir! Did we not have the best Prince who ever lived, in the guise of our departed Sovereign? Is her Scots cousin even half the man she was? Drunk all day, and dull all night?’

Alfonso frowns. ‘Hush, Aemilia! Mind that tongue of yours. They’d hang you, just like Guido Fawkes, for saying so much!’

‘Oh, dear Alfonso!’ shrieks Anne. ‘How can you say so? They wouldn’t
dare
!’

He ignores her and stares at me thoughtfully. ‘But witches, now, that might…’ He blows some notes, making them sound like the whistling wind.

‘A little magic always pleases, on the stage,’ says Anne, looking down at her ermine trim as if she were wearing Titania’s gown. ‘Does it not, Tom?’

‘I heard tell that one Agnes Sampson, a witch in Scotland, told His Majesty of matters which only he could know of.’ Alfonso’s tone is light, but I can tell that he is delighted to be so well informed.

I look up in surprise. ‘What “matters”?’

‘Secret words of love which he whispered to Queen Anne on their wedding night, when they were newly come from Denmark. Which he swore all the devils in Hell could not have discovered.’

Now I laugh in good earnest. ‘My dear husband! I had no idea you were such an authority. Is this what His Majesty confides in you, when you’ve done amusing him with jigs and ditties? He acquaints you with his pillow-talk and curtain-whispers, and describes his horror of the instruments of Satan? Why, soon you will be Duke of Long Ditch and we shall all be dressed in cloth-of-gold!’

‘It is
said
, Aemilia, it is
said
. Of course I have not heard it from the King directly.’

‘They say His Majesty is very wise,’ Anne declares, sipping her toddy. ‘He should be a doctor in a university, not a king.’

Alfonso shifts irritably in his chair. ‘From this awful meeting sprang his interest in demonology.’

I poke the fire. ‘What nonsense,’ I say. But, as the flames dance, I can see Lilith the Serpent and her yellow stare.

It is true – I have hidden my play away, for what am I supposed to do with it? It could not be staged, being woman’s words, so I can only put it from me, and continue with my verse. The party is over now, and everyone is asleep. So I read it by candle-light, safe in the knowledge that it would take all the fires of Hell to rouse Alfonso once he has had a bellyful of wine. I am surprised, if I am honest, that the words chill me to the marrow. When I have finished, I lock it up with the grimoire, to keep it from prying eyes.

A serving boy comes knocking with a letter. To my surprise, it is from Richard Burbage.

Now, this puts me in a dilemma. If a woman’s words can’t put on the public stage, then what use can they make of my play? And yet… perhaps it could be performed before the King.
I would hardly dare to hope for this, but it does deal with a subject that I know will interest him. I haven’t seen Will since the day he came to see me after the plague, and have heard little about him since that time, saving only that he prospers, which is bad enough. After all he has said, and written, he thought a brief explanation about Wriothesley’s confession would be enough to make amends! Perhaps even sow the seeds for renewed passion. More fool him. What riles me most is his readiness to believe everything spoken by His Lascivious Lordship, and his reluctance to believe me. Or even give me a proper hearing. And, if he truly cared, surely he would try to speak to me again. I know Will well enough: that which he wants, he will strive for to the utmost. He has forgotten me, as his star has risen at Court. The Globe’s players are the ‘King’s Men’ now, and nothing seems beyond them. Why would he want me, in any case, ageing, penniless, stuck in my little house? I am no longer the ‘Dark Aemilia’ of his poetry, or his memory.

But these are scratching, irritating thoughts. Must I be humble? Must I be obedient and obscure? Am I just a housewife now, a dowdy work-drab? No. No one would ever say that of me. If Burbage has seen fit to invite me to the Globe, then I will go, and see what may come of it.

So I set off, alone, disguised in that old cloak of Joan’s, which makes me look twice the hag I am, and get half the looks from passers-by. Its strange scents have faded, perhaps because Marie keeps it in the scullery, next to the hanging game, which gives off a pungent blood-scent as it ripens for the pot. It is February and still freezing: it’s the hardest, whitest winter I have ever known.

When I go into the street, the air is full of cries of bewilderment and fright. I see that the neat tracks of a cloven-hoofed creature are marked out in the glistering snow. They seem to have been made by a two-legged being, striding like a man. It has crossed streets and gardens, dunghills and the frozen kennel. Looking about me, I see its tracks even march up the side of an old hay-barn
and over its pitched roof. How is this possible? Has some Beast marched over all things standing in its way? I shudder to imagine some black hell-wraith, perched upon a roof-stack, seeing all. I summoned Lilith – God alone knows what other demons fly among the roof-stacks, called up by those who know even less than I do. They say that Hades burns bright red, the city of eternal flame, but supposing it is froze blue-white, like winter? I say Hell is cold, the furthest distance from the Sun.

There is no need to hire a boatman: I walk across the frozen Thames, which is as black and smooth as an obsidian mirror and so clear that I can see a vast pike, frozen solid, several fathoms down. The booths stand in a disorderly muddle, not yet open at this hour. Dogs run hither and thither, cocking their legs and sniffing at littered bones, while sea eagles skid slush as their talons hit the ice. An apothecary sorts bottles inside the first booth I pass. Close by, a cobbler is selling leather shoes from a basket. ‘Stout shoes for the frost!’ he shouts, waving a pair before me. But I press on.

It starts to snow again, and the white flakes blur my sight. There is a strange light, as if the sun were shining from the river’s edge. For a moment I feel confused and unsure of my way. I think of the pages I’m carrying with me. What am I doing, stepping out alone to visit a theatre in the Liberties? This is madness. What would Aristotle make of this, who saw Woman as some error in creation?

But I’ll have none of this. I straighten my back, and walk more boldly. There it is, ahead, set back from the south shore: the Globe.

I study it as I reach Blackfriars Stairs. It rises like the castle of an enchantress above the surrounding trees. Midway up the walls is an encircling row of windows, no bigger than the arrow slits of the Tower prison. To the west of the building is the gabled roof of the stage and tiring-house, and pointing just above this a little cupola. It reminds me of the minarets of Richmond and Nonsuch: an Eastern oddity among the common homes and
stews. This fake opulence is of a piece with the gilt and foolery within, since every inch of this great palace is made from wood, not stone, and it has been carried, post by post, from its old home at Shoreditch. This temple of varieties has no more permanence than a widow’s shack; yet it thinks itself well above its station. Over the entrance is a crest displaying Hercules bearing the globe upon his shoulders, and the dubious motto:
Totus mundus agit histrionem
: the whole world is a playhouse.

I knock on the door: no answer. I bang harder: but there is only silence. So I push it open, throwing all my weight against it. It groans as it yields, opening just a crack, and I wriggle inside. I’m standing in the dark passageway between the lowest tier of seats, facing the stage itself. There’s no sound, save only the cry of the kites, flapping on the roof thatch high above me. I look around, bemused by the emptiness of the place, having only been there as part of a boisterous crowd. The pit, open to the grey, snow-burdened sky, stretches before me. The great stage is deserted. I walk over to it, looking around me uneasily.

Someone laughs, loudly, from far above. I climb the steps on to the boards.

‘Hello?’ I look up. ‘Mr Burbage?’

Another laugh, very merry.

‘Who’s there?’ I call. I narrow my eyes, scouring the entrances to the tiring-rooms, and the musicians’ gallery which is just above them.

‘She can’t see us,’ says a familiar voice.

‘Aemilia!’ This is a louder, richer accent. ‘Aemilia, look higher!’

I look around me, flushing with anger. ‘I can’t see you,’ I cry. ‘Come out, and stop fooling with me.’

‘Higher!’ calls the rich voice. ‘Even higher!’

Finally I spy them. Two heads, peering down at me, from the topmost point of the Heavens, half-hidden behind a painted wooden cloud.

The cloud-space proves to be a narrow platform, like a hidden stage, just below the cupola. It is reached by a series of steep flights of steps. Burbage and Will are bending over a chart on a small table. They present an odd contrast: Burbage short and stout, with his walrus nose and doleful eyes; and Will, taller, well-made, tapping his foot in time with some rhythm that beats in his own head. Both are dressed in heavy coats with black coney collars, and fine kid gloves, with long patterned cuffs. They could be two wealthy merchants, discussing a consignment of new kerseys from Halifax or a cargo of pepper from the Levant.

Burbage kisses my hand, bringing off his trick of being mocking and gentlemanly at once. ‘Mistress Lanyer, we are honoured. And you are looking so
well
.’

‘Thank you, sir.’

‘I hope the climb did not tire you?’

‘I am not in my dotage yet.’

‘Indeed
not
. You have not changed one jot since the first day I saw you. Still as comely as a maid.’

I bow. ‘I am sorry to see that you are busy with Mr Shakespeare. I had thought we had arranged to meet at this hour.’

‘Oh, no matter, we will be done with this in no time,’ says Burbage. ‘It’s just some hare-brained scheme of Will’s.’

‘It is
business
, Dick, I wish you’d give it your proper attention,’ says Will, not looking at me.

‘Business, man? Our business is the play, upon the stage.’

‘Indeed,’ says Will. ‘I am aware of it.’

Burbage straightens his back, pushes out his chest and seems to grow a foot taller. Stepping back from the table, he declaims:

It is a splendid speech: he seems both aged and magnificent in the making of it.

‘You see?’ says Burbage. ‘The words are all. Not dandling players like newborn babes.’

‘I agree that they are
most
significant, since I wrote them,’ says Will. He has not looked up from his study once.

‘What do you mean?’ I ask. ‘What “dandling”?’

‘Will sets out to make men fly,’ says Burbage, extending his arm with regal generosity. ‘As if he were Icarus.’

‘Daedalus, if I may correct you,’ say I.

Will looks at me for the first time, almost as if he is about to laugh. ‘They’ve done it at the Fortune,’ he says. ‘Our competitors.’

Burbage makes another expansive gesture, as if dismissing Greek legends in their entirety. ‘Ah, yes, Daedalus is the inventor. Of course, of course. Icarus is the son, who fell. As did two men at the Fortune, and broke their backs.’

Will appears to be making some sort of calculation on a piece of foolscap.

‘Do you not think of that?’ I ask him.

‘I think of divinities and angels, descending from above,’ says Will, after a moment. He seems to consider the empty air in front of him. ‘I think of the heavens, riven by the radiance of a suspended goddess. Strapped safely in a chair.’ Quite suddenly, he turns and flashes a glance at me. ‘Come, Mistress Lanyer, look…’

I go over, lips pursed. The diagram shows a strange construction consisting of a pivot, a long arm and a chair. It reminds
me of the Wheel of Fortune, that most double of the Tarot cards, which can foretell great luck or dire calamity.

‘You see, this is the stage we stand upon.’ He indicates the outline of the diagram. ‘We have enough space for windlass, drum and strong cordage. And – here – for the player to be readied for his flying seat.’ He is looking down again, pointing to the next diagram. ‘And here – with some little refinement to the plan, the whole business will be done in one sweeping movement – just a slight upward thrust so the chair can clear the edge of the platform – and then forward and downward. On to the stage. You see?’

I make as close a study of the diagram as I would if I were the carpenter myself. I dare not look up. At last I say, ‘What do you want with my play?’

Will sighs and folds up the chart. ‘You must discuss all that with Dick. It is nothing to do with me.’ He disappears down the stairs, his dark cape flying out behind him.

Burbage, on the other hand, is smiling, all avuncular. ‘Come, mistress, sit down,’ he says, coming over to the table. ‘Don’t mind Will. He has a sore head. He has been doing the accounts again – it’s best left to Heminge.’

‘I don’t mind him at all. I do not think of him.’

He smiles in a manner which annoys me. ‘Please – sit down. I have a proposition to make, which I think will interest you.’

I sit.

‘Have your brought the play with you?’ he asks. ‘I should like to read it, if I may.’

I pull it from my bag, but withhold it when he tries to take it from me. ‘Sir, I should like to know
why
you wish to read it? Since a lady’s work cannot be played upon a public stage.’

Burbage beckons me closer, lowering his voice and rounding his shoulders in a stage approximation of urgent secrecy. ‘Can we speak in confidence? Up here, where none can hear us? Might I depend on your discretion?’

‘I would not be alive today if I did not know how to be discreet.’

‘Quite.’ He shifts his chair closer, so I can see the smallpox pits on his great nose. ‘To be frank with you, we are looking for something new. Fresh ideas, to please and reassure the King. He is distracted, sees an assassin in every corner and fears the Catholics will try again. He is not a happy man.’

‘He can’t be blamed for fearing plotters. Since they came so close to blowing him to Heaven.’

‘Of course not. Daggers, poison, even curses might undo him. Or, like his own father, he might yet be ripped to pieces by a conspirator’s bomb.’

‘So why can’t… Mr Shakespeare turn his hand to this?’

‘Will is busy. His daughter is to marry, his wife wants more money to spend on her fine house, and he insists his next piece will be set in Ancient Egypt. I cannot for the life of me see a Scottish theme emerging there. We’ve looked at other plays – including three from Dekker – but none of them will do.’

I have to swallow hard at the mention of Will’s greedy wife. ‘No, I can see that would be difficult.’

‘The King is… well, he is a scholar one day, and a sot the next. In his books, he is the wisest man I ever met. In his cups, the most foolish. I don’t know what to make of him.’

‘You are the leader of the King’s Men. The Royal company, in his pay. What’s there to worry you?’

‘We are his appointed company now, but, in time to come – who knows? We must work hard to keep his favour.’