Dark Aemilia (28 page)

‘Doesn’t he like what you have done for him so far?’

‘Well enough, I’m told. Though he’s not as fulsome as the late Queen. Scots, you see. Uncivilised.’

‘So what did you do last?’

‘Madam! How can you ask such a thing? It was my greatest part so far. My King Lear!’

‘The foolish dotard Prince? I saw it done at Court, years ago. I never understood it.’

He frowns, offended. ‘What, a woman of your superior understanding?’

‘Must Kings be told to keep hold of their kingdoms? I should not have thought so.’

‘You must see the new play! We are staging it again in spring. No one remembers that hoary elder version now – Will’s telling is quite new, and vastly better.’

‘But you haven’t changed the story?’

‘No. Why should we?’

‘The King divides his kingdom between his three daughters, and suffers the consequences.’

‘That is the sum of it.’

‘What King ever lived who acted in such a way?’

‘In Will’s hands, how could it be otherwise than great? An instructive, yet crowd-pleasing fable.’

‘Crowds are not always right.’

‘He always does so well with the
words
.’

‘I’ve no doubt of it.’

‘Also, there are some scenes of excellent torture, his best since
Titus
.’

‘Now torture
is
a crowd-pleaser, that I certainly recall.’

‘But… I don’t know. The King seemed distracted, low in spirits when he was watching it.
Tired
. At least he woke up for my great speech, on the blasted heath. Which I just gave a flavour of.’

‘So now you think… a Scottish play, with hags?’

‘Indeed!’ says Burbage. ‘Blood and hags! We need a play to please the King, and to please the King, it must have murder in it, as he was nearly murdered, and that murderer must be most direly punished.’

‘I see, but – ’

‘We must include the intended destruction of a kingdom – ’

‘Which I have – ’

‘The undermining of the good by the diligent deception of the evil. As our King was undermined – d’you see it? – by the traitor Fawkes and all the rest.’ Burbage spreads his hands. ‘And we need plots – which can be woven in, don’t fear this. And equivocation, but we can do that in one speech.’

‘Assuredly.’

‘But most of all,’ says Burbage, taking my hand in his, ‘most of all we must have witches.’

‘Why?’

‘Marston has them in his
Sophosha
, and Barnes has his
Devil’s Charter.
And Dekker’s done one, which comes as no surprise, since he works like a thousand demons.’

Will has returned, with more rolls of paper, which he spreads out upon the table, using pewter mugs to flatten the corners.

‘And what is Dekker’s play called?’ I ask.

‘
The Whore of Babylon
,’ says Will, his back still turned. He speaks with peculiar vehemence.

‘So you see,’ says Burbage. ‘What you have wrote is wellnigh perfect.’

‘But what’s my reward for this?’

Burbage crosses his legs as if to make himself more comfortable in his seat, then recrosses them. ‘Well… it would partly be this much: knowing these were your lines, of course, performed before the King of England. Few men can claim so much.’

‘Few men. And no women. I should like my name to be heard.’

‘Heard?’

‘If my play were done before the King, this might be possible. As if it were a noble lady’s closet play, put on at some great house.’

Burbage raises his eyebrows. He looks at me as he might have done if a black rat had addressed him from the wainscot. ‘Give me the play, my dear, and we will talk about the terms – if it is good enough,’ he says.

I consider this. ‘I suppose it would be foolish to say no.’

Burbage smiles, and looks down at the first page, on which I have written:
The Tragedie of Ladie Macbeth, A Scottish Queen.

‘An excellent title, certainly. Leave it in my hands, and I will see what shall be done.’

Something ails Marie. Never the most sensible of serving girls, she appears to have turned quite mad since Christmas, and at first I cannot think what can be the matter. She forgets to do the linen on washday, so that Alfonso has to wear a soiled shirt to the palace when he is called to discuss a new trip to the Indies with Sir Robert Unwin. Yesterday, she moaned so much over the drying of ruffs on wood sticks that I was forced to beat her about the head, giving her a thick blobberlip. Which I regret, as I am somewhat tender-hearted. After that, she was in such a state of woeful discontent that she spoiled the soap, burned the bread, spilled the milk, dulled the pewter and cried when I asked her to comb out my hair.

Today brings the latest of her blunders. She has failed to brush my best wool dress, so a great moth flitters up into the air when I shake it out to wear to church. The blind insect has feasted till the cloth is full of holes, and now it is only fit for wearing in the house. When I tell her of this, she is half-crying, half-laughing, and so distracted that I fear I might lose her to Bedlam. In fact, I have ceased being angry, and am afraid of what she might do next: set the house on fire or jump into the river.

‘What’s the matter with that simpleton Marie?’ I ask Anne as we cross the fields towards the distant spire of St Mary’s Church. Marie is ahead of us, walking along with Henry. I frown as she falls over a running pig, which Henry had the sense to side-step.

‘Can’t you guess?’ Anne looks at me queerly.

‘If I could, I would have said so.’

She smiles, hard-eyed. ‘It’s love. She feels the pangs of
love
.’

‘But whom does she love?’

Anne regards me as if it was I who were the half-wit, and not my silly servant. ‘Why it’s Tom!’ she says.

I give a scream of laughter. ‘But he is just…’

She lays her hand on my arm and I see that Marie has turned to look at us. ‘Just a babe in arms, I know,’ she whispers. ‘No more than a child in his ways. And besides, when he is of an age, he will most likely marry into the theatre, not waste himself on some little drudge.’

‘To think of it!’ I say. ‘Of course, he cannot love her in return. Such a useless dizzard of a girl.’

‘Of course not,’ says Anne, sticking her chin out. And I see from the jut of it that he is utterly enslaved.

‘Oh, Lord above!’ I cry. ‘Whatever shall we do with our misbehaving children?’

Anne stops and looks at the calm steeple of the church, cutting into the sky. She is weeping. All around I can hear the bleating of sheep in the winter sunshine.

‘Marie is going to have a child,’ she says.

‘Dear God,’ I say. ‘So that is what it’s all about!’

Anne wipes her eyes. ‘He doesn’t even know who else she’s been with. Why should he marry the little slattern? She threw herself at him the minute she set eyes on him.’

‘It was ever thus.’

‘He could be great, Aemilia. He has a talent, you know. Now he wants to tie himself to that shameless trollop, and her unborn child.’

‘Let us go to church,’ I say, ‘and pray. You have your son’s foolishness to burden you. I have my idiot spouse.’

Inside St Mary’s, we lower our heads and pray, most devoutly. ‘Please God,’ I say silently, deciding not to trouble with the Scriptures. ‘Let Marie’s womb-blood flow tomorrow, and let Sir Robert Unwin take Alfonso on his next sea voyage. Let him go
to the Americas, and preserve our fortunes. And my virtue, what is left of it.’ I stand, head bowed, for some time.

‘I do not want to fornicate with Inchbald, Lord, if this can be avoided.’

I stand longer, before my Maker.

‘Forgive me, Lord, for being so bold.’

God answers one of these prayers, but not both. Alfonso is given a commission by Sir Robert that very day. Of Marie’s womb blood I hear nothing, but she burns the bread each morning.

The letter I have been waiting for finally arrives. What I receive is not – as I had expected – a slender folded document. It is a bundle of messy pages. My pages, I see at once. And yet the note itself is brief enough.

I do not breathe – I think I might not breathe again – but scrabble through the pages as if looking for reassurance, desperate to soothe the fizz and fury in my head. A speech springs out at me: Lady Macbeth, at full height.

I close my eyes, not needing to see the rest, as I could hear it clear. A voice that echoes between Lilith’s and my own.

I speak aloud, my eyes still shut.
‘Would’st thou have that which thou esteem’st the ornament of life, and live a coward in thine own esteem, letting “I dare not” wait upon “I would”?’

Cruel, duplicitous Burbage! To trip off this shoddy letter, when he has seen what I had put. I sink down to the ground, and the pages flutter around me, and I bury my head in my hands and I sob. I cry because I know now they will never hear me. This is it, and this is all of it, this house of thirty oaks, this board with its crooked stools, this fireside, the ham, the pots, the dirty skillet. I am hemmed in by walls of wattle, and by hours of life. There will be no breaking out, no second chance, no late reward. I am a spent whore, and that is the top and bottom of it. The best I can hope for is to keep the roof above us by licking Inchbald’s little cock.

I cry till my throat aches, and after that there seems little purpose to it. For I have my son to think of. So I wipe my eyes, and look around me, and think. I can’t sit sobbing here for ever more. What shall we eat? Who will do the shirts? And I pick up the pages and sort them into a tidy pile, in the order in which they were written.

That done, I begin to sweep the kitchen. I remember, looking at the uncleared table and the dirty wooden trenchers, that Marie has been gone from the house for the whole day. Since Anne told me she was pregnant, I have realised that I was foolish not to notice. She’s fattened up like a cooped goose, week after week,
so that even her little wrists are now thickened, and her swollen breasts rest upon the table when she leans forward to sop up her pottage with her bread. What’s more, her belly sticks out plainly now. And she and Tom are always whispering, and conniving, when they get the chance. Anne can do nothing with Tom, and I can get no sense from Marie.

But here she comes! Has she grown bigger in a single day? She waddles in from the street, sweating and with her dress loosened, even though the wind is still so bitter. Looking at her, I wonder how many months she’s gone. More than seven? If so she must have been already with child at Yuletide, the little minx. Her belly is bigger than mine has ever been, and Henry was a porker of a baby, the biggest Joan had ever seen.

‘Whatever are you thinking?’ I say, straightening from my work. ‘Are you turning vagabond and stalking the highway? Do you shun your mistress, and run out among the common doxies?’

‘What is that you say?’ She wipes her forehead with her kerchief. I may as well have spoken Latin.

‘Street scum, that’s what they are, with no home to go to and faces brown as privy slop.’

‘I can’t run anywhere,’ says Marie. This is true, given she can barely walk. She lowers herself slowly on to a stool, using the table for support.

I frown. ‘Shall your babe be born under a hedge? Or at Tothill Fields?’

‘I don’t know,’ she says. Her face is white and set with tiredness. I feel a stab of pity for her, in spite of myself, this silly girl whose lustfulness has led her to child-bed so young. What fools we women are. I pour her some ale.

‘Thank you, mistress. You are kind.’

‘Kind!’ I have to laugh.

‘You are to me. I have been a bad servant.’

‘I fear you have.’

‘But I will pay for it.’

‘You will have a child.
Then
you will pay. But you will also have your reward.’

Henry comes in from school, as if summoned, and throws his bag on to the floor. I draw him in and hug him, then push him from me. ‘Begone, Henry, our talk is not for you.’

‘Nor would I want to listen,’ says he. ‘Women’s idle chatter. Of dull babies and fine dresses and… stupid slimy
kisses
.’

He makes a face, picks up his catapult and runs outside again.

I sit down opposite Marie, and pour myself a drink. ‘You will still be my servant,’ I say. ‘The child – it won’t prevent you sweeping, I hope, or stirring the stew.’

She looks at me, her eyes great with tears. ‘No, mistress.’

I set down my cup. ‘Then why are you so miserable?’

She rests her head on her arms and begins to sob.

I stare at her. ‘Marie? What is it? Thomas is no worse than any other lad! Marie, tell me. What is wrong?’

At first she says nothing, just cries and cries, till I think I must get on and turn the mattresses. Then she stops, quite suddenly. ‘There is something terrible,’ she says, her face hidden.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Something is wrong.’

‘
What
is wrong?’

She raises her head. ‘Something is wrong with the baby.’

‘Oh, for shame! You are young! It will pop out like a plum from a pie. You’ll have another dozen before you’re done.’

She rubs her bloodshot eyes with her wet fingers. ‘I have dreams.’

‘Dreams.’

‘Dreams such as… such as I have never known.’

I sigh and pile up some dirty trenchers. ‘And what do you dream of?’

Her gaze fixes on me, her eyes grow wider and wider as if she saw her nightmares in my face. ‘I dream of monsters. Horrid
midnight creatures. Demons, misbegot, that stalk us when the sun has gone.’

‘Nursery fears, which you must soon grow out of.’

‘I dream there is a monster growing inside me. My mother used to tell me an old French tale, about this very thing!’

This child is too fanciful for her own good. ‘Marie, you are trying my patience. There are a thousand tales like that one.’

‘But why?’ she says. ‘Surely it’s because such things are common? When monsters are born, I mean
really
, the midwives keep it quiet.’

I say nothing. The girl isn’t quite as foolish as she looks. Many years ago, I attended a birth with Joan. It was a hard delivery, which lasted for two days and two nights. And after all her travail the poor woman had little enough to show for it. The babe – of no gender – was born with one great eye in the middle of its forehead. A sexless Cyclops. Joan swaddled it, and sprinkled it with holy water. But when the father saw his child he swore, grabbed it by the feet and bashed it against the wall till he had beaten out all its brains. The infant’s screams were the worst I ever heard; no witch, nor gibbet-rogue, nor half-bowelled recusant, could make such a sound. Unshriven, that malformed babe went straight to Hell.

It’s true, we kept it quiet, saying only that the child had died.

And of course, now that Alfonso is off cavorting on a ship somewhere, my landlord soon gets wind of it, and here he is. I am cleaning out the jakes when he comes up behind me, quiet as a river rat.

‘Mistress Lanyer.’ He removes his hat with a flourish. It is a new one, by the look of it. Bright scarlet, with a yellow ostrich feather: colours which are all the rage at Court.

‘Mr Inchbald, shorter than ever. Good day to you, sir.’

‘Your servant let me in, I hope I am not intruding.’

I make a lot of business of pouring a pot of piss into the maw of the privy. ‘I fear I am somewhat busy. Hard at my chores, as you can see.’

‘Such a lady as yourself should not be mired in… these matters.’ He is looking at his feet. A turd has dropped on to one of them. I pretend not to notice.

‘I am not fit for entertaining. Can’t you come another time?’

He kicks the turd into the air with surprising skill. ‘The rent is due, sweet lady.’

‘Ah, the sweet rent.’

‘I’ll wait while you wash your hands, and perhaps we can share a glass of something from your larder.’

‘Very well.’ My mind is working quickly. I have one last item of some value, which might buy him off.

‘Excellent. The workmanship is most careful. Quality, Mistress Lanyer, most admirable quality.’

The dwarf is examining a little silver pomander, shaped like a galleon. I am offering it to him in lieu of rent – and fornication. We are standing by the walnut cupboard in the kitchen in which I keep the few things of value that I have left.

‘It’s made in Nuremberg. See the mark?’ I say. I point with a long arm, keeping my distance. ‘The figures there are meant to be my dear husband, God bless him, and my good self.’

‘Though they could be anyone,’ says Inchbald.

‘You can keep condiments and salt cellars beneath the deck.’

‘Most… elegant.’ His eyes have not left my bosom once.

I decide my attention should most usefully remain on the pomander. ‘Fill it with rose-water, and you can use it to ward off foul vapours and disease.’

‘Why, it’s almost a shame to take it from you.’

‘Almost, yes. But think on this – if you were a just a fraction shorter you could ride on it yourself.’

‘Your wit is well known, mistress, but it can sometimes mar your perfect beauty.’

‘Shame. Stop staring at my dugs, please, Mr Inchbald.’

He puts his hands behind his back, as if this was the only way he could stop them wandering towards my breasts. ‘I’d still sooner have a suck, for all it is a handsome piece of work.’