Dark Aemilia (29 page)

‘Take it, or take your leave.’

Disgruntled, Inchbald wraps the pomander up in a linen cloth and stores it in his leather satchel. He bows gracelessly, and I turn away and set about cleaning a candlestick, hoping he will leave. There is silence for a moment, then he says, ‘It is a shame that you are so ill-disposed towards me, madam. I was intending to invite you to the theatre, as my most honoured guest.’

‘Well, you do surprise me.’ This is true. None of Inchbald’s other ladies is taken out to town. It strikes me that Anne would think it most annoying if I were rewarded for my virtue with such a treat.

‘There is a lot of talk about the latest work the King’s players are staging at the Globe. They say they put it on at Whitehall and the Queen fainted right away.’

I have been standing with my back to him, scraping at a gobbet of dried porridge on the kitchen table with a carving knife, but now I stop and look at him.

‘Queen Anne fainted?’

‘Indeed. Quite the horridest play that she had seen in all her life. So I have been told. She thought there was black magic in it. Just like
Faustus
.’

I drop the knife. ‘What is it called?’

He taps his forehead, tutting with irritation. ‘Oh, do you know, I quite forget. Something odd-sounding. Something of the north.’

‘Scottish?’

‘Scottish! Yes! I have it now. It’s
The Tragedie of Macbeth.
’

What’s in a name? What indeed. Macbeth is a good one. Perhaps it is just the title they have filched. It is not feasible, not likely, that these seasoned players have stole my work. And yet I cannot sleep for thinking of it. The sun sinks, the night blackens, the sun rises again, and I do not so much as blink. For three days, and three nights, this is my rest. Would they do this, and say not a word about it? I can’t face going to the theatre to see it for myself. No, I will ask Tom Flood.

I decide to seek him out at the Anchor at Southwark. It is a good spot for actors, for when the talk runs flat they can amuse themselves by watching the pirates hang at Execution Dock, and so learn how to make their stage-deaths true to life. A gaggle of prentice-boys is standing outside, laughing together and drinking ale from their leather black-jackets. They call out when I pass, cocky as you please. I stare back stony-eyed, and all three of them look nervously away. Inside, darkness and a roar of talking. Narrow booths contain half-seen groups of drinkers and bawds: a man kissing a white-armed girl; an old doxy, sitting astride a red-headed sailor-boy; a group of law students, opining in the Latin.

A thin man with a twisted lip comes hobbling towards me. ‘Mistress, can I be of help?’ He speaks with false gentility.

‘I don’t think so, thank you.’ I look around the crowded inn.

‘We don’t see many married ladies here. Who do you seek?’

‘Tom Flood, a player.’

‘Ah, well. He is engaged. Occupied, or
occupying
, if I am to be precise.’

‘I see. We are speaking, if I am right, of fornication?’

‘She’s not the youngest, nor the comeliest, but she is the… well. She
accommodates
.’

‘A gamesome old jade, I am sure.’

‘Else he’d be throwing away a good sixpence.’

‘Indeed. Take me to him, will you?’

‘Are you sure you wouldn’t like to wait? We have the finest apple cider, the old Queen’s favourite tipple.’

‘Drank in this doghole often, did she?’

‘Slept here, mistress, on each progress.’

Of course she did, and feasted on broken hog meat. ‘Then by all means bring me some cider.’

When he’s gone, I hasten up the stairs. I knock on the first door I come to. ‘Tom Flood?’ There are little panting shrieks from within. Yelping, rapid, rhythmic. It reminds me of the time I heard the old rogue Ralegh at his game of forest hide-and-fuck, a sport he was most fond of. I heard him having Bess Throckmorton against a tree. At first she was all coy decorum: ‘Sweet Sir Walter, will you undo me? Nay, sweet Sir Walter!’ But as her pleasure and excitement grew all she could squeal was, ‘Swisser swatter swisser swatter.’ And the branches shook as if brave Sir W. were pleasuring the trunk itself.

This is a seamier setting by far. I bang on the door once more. ‘Tom?’ I try again. But the bullish roar which rips out next sounds more like the come-cry of the Beast himself than any sound that Tom could make. I try the next door. A Blackamoor opens it a crack, and peers out at me, suspicious. ‘Is Tom within?’ I ask.

The Blackamoor disappears. ‘Are you called Tom?’ I hear him say. He returns. ‘No Toms here.’

At last I come to a door at the end of the passage. I bang on it with the flat of my hand. At first there is no answer. But I can hear the gentle rattle of a snore. Pushing it open, I see Tom, sleeping softly. Next to him sits a raddled whore of at least my age, with dangling naked dugs. She is eating from a little dish, and red wine streaks her chin.

‘Who might you be?’ asks the whore, mouth full. ‘Not his mother, are you?’

‘What’s it to you if I’m his wife? Get out, you filthy drab!’

After she has gone, I sit down on the bed and look at Tom, with his white skin and his curling, matted hair. His breath rises and falls sweetly with each snore. The stench of ale comes off him like a river fog.

‘Tom,’ I say. I touch his hand. ‘Wake up.’

He makes a noise like a puppy nosing for his mother’s tit, a hungry little whimper. Then he opens his eyes. With a cry, he sits upright, clutching the covers to his groin. ‘Aemilia! Mistress Lanyer – Lord above! What is the matter?’

I fold my arms. ‘I have a question for you.’

‘God’s blood!’ says Tom. ‘Has my mother put you up to this?’

‘You’ve been drinking.’

‘A little, madam.’

‘And whoring too, it seems.’

‘Well…’

‘No way for a leading lady to go on. But that’s not the worst of it.’

‘What?’ Now there is panic in his eyes. ‘Marie! Is she ill? Has it come? I must go to her…’ He leaps out of bed, naked as an earth-worm, and begins to dress himself.

‘Tom – stop. Marie is not ill. And I doubt the baby’s ready – though it’s twice the size it should be.’

He stops, half in his shirt, and looks at me. ‘What, then? Why do you pester me?’

‘Pester?
Pester
? And your mother thinks it’s
Henry
who is spoiled! I’ve come here for some information. Some facts. No
equivocation
, please. I know you have the answer.’

He starts buttoning his shirt. ‘I don’t know what I know which is of any use to you, but ask me what you like.’

I stand up and walk to the other side of the room, trying to set my mind straight. ‘What’s this about a Scottish play? The next one you’re doing at the Globe?’

He frowns, as if trying to remember lines. ‘It’s a secret. They’ve told us to keep it quiet. This play will startle all the town.’

‘Why so secret?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘So who do
you
play?’

His fiddles with his shirt.

‘Your
part
, Tom, what is it?’

‘Lady Macbeth,’ he says, looking at me with a sudden glint of pleasure. ‘Later the Scottish Queen.’

‘I know who Lady Macbeth is, you buffoon.’

He smiles, uneasy. ‘Nathan Field is only Lady Macduff, and then a serving woman with hardly any lines. He was most put out when Burbage told us.’

‘Is yours a little part, or long?’

‘Littler than I would have liked. But the greatest boy’s part, by some way.’

‘How long?’

‘Long enough.’

‘What kind of woman is she?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘What is her nature?’

‘In some scenes, she’s a better man than her lord.’

‘She leads him into wickedness?’

‘She eggs him on, to kill the King. Then falls into a most excellent madness, walking in her nightgown like an unquiet spirit. This part is worth a thousand Juliets.’

‘So.’ The tale was written down by Holinshed, but some of this is mine. I breathe deeply, imagining Will’s head, and that of Burbage, high above the Bridge, upon a spike. Par-boiled with cumin seeds, and dipped in tar. ‘Do you happen to have your pages with you, by any chance?’

Tom takes a wad of paper from his doublet and hands it to me. ‘They are brutal lines,’ he says. ‘But bold.’

I read them, and the blood beats in my brain when I see how they have cheated me. ‘Who wrote these?’ I ask, as if even now all might be somehow mended.

‘Why, Will Shakespeare, of course,’ says Tom. He is dressed now, and looks around him, then picks up his hat. ‘Who else would it be?’

Just as he has finished speaking, the door opens, and who should walk in but Will himself, neat as a character in a play? He too is buttoning his shirt-front. I wonder if it was his voice I heard, roaring his pleasure a few moments ago? The room sways as if we were all at sea, and I recall how he would look at me when it was me he rode, and loved, and rejoiced in.

He is saying, ‘Tom, we must go, for it’s…’ Then he catches sight of me and turns pale. ‘Aemilia!’

I bow my head.

‘What are you…?’

‘A woman, sir, more’s the pity.’

‘I mean – what are you doing in this place?’

‘Business.’ I look him up and down. ‘And you? Pleasure, I if I heard you right.’

Oh, God! It is a summer’s day again. I’m in his arms and he is fucking me in bright sun. When he comes he throws his head back and calls my name: ‘Aemilia! Aemilia! Aemilia!’ We are born again, one flesh, one love.

‘Business?’ He is staring back, then looks down at himself in dismay. ‘I am on business myself, though I expect you will think otherwise.’

‘It is no business of mine where you go a-whoring,’ I say. ‘I have other things to think of. I heard word about a play.’ I nod towards Tom. ‘From my young neighbour.’

‘Of course. The play.’

‘What is it called?’ I ask, keeping my voice innocent.

Will smoothes his hands over his hair. ‘It’s – well. The title is
The Tragedie of Macbeth
.’

‘The King’s story, rather than the Queen’s?’

‘Quite so.’

‘And therefore, different from the play I left with Burbage, which fell sadly short and which he returned to me. As you will recall.’

‘Oh – very different! Utterly different! An India to your Kent,
as it were. A chasm of difference between your… musings and this finished work. Yes.’ He looks unhappier still. ‘That is the way of it. Plays are adapted, from many, many sources.’

‘And yet – here are Tom’s pages, and nearly all the words are mine.’

‘Yours? Surely not.’

‘I wrote them, and I know I’m not mistaken. And what about the witches? And the murder of Macduff’s wife and her little ones? All thrown out – or some of this included?’

‘All are there, aren’t they?’ says Tom. ‘It’s a fine, dark thing, and will set an audience trembling.’

‘These things are there,’ says Will, blinking. ‘And more besides. I mean – new things, beside these… others. Come Tom, let us go.’

I step into the doorway, so they cannot pass. ‘I hear it is highly thought of, this great, new, secret production.’

‘There is no secret – we waited till it had been approved of by the King,’ says Will. ‘And now he has seen it, and admires it, and all is well.’

I look from Will’s face to Tom’s and back again. ‘It’s a poor business,’ I say. ‘Is this greatness, or littleness, I wonder? Is this genius, or common theft? Tell me, sir, you are a man of many words.’

‘We call it poetry,’ says Will. ‘We call it Art.’

‘Oh, shame on you,’ say I. ‘You and your kind.’

‘What “kind” is that?’

‘Filthy players, sir, and twisted poets and your frilly little helpmeets in their skirts.’ Tom looks behind him when I cast a look in his direction, as if I could not possibly be referring to him.

‘Aemilia, listen to reason, will you – ?’

‘Reason? Heaven help us! Reason? Is this the best that you can do? You… men! Cock-heavy, brain-light, and brimful of your own importance? The apex of Creation? God aimed too low!’

I turn and hurry down the stairs, through the crowded tavern and out into the street. The sun is low over the roofs and chimneys, and it will soon be nightfall. My head aches; my heart beats fast. What hope do I have of getting anything, in this City? I will end up starving in the Cage with the other drabs and vagrants. But I have not gone far when someone seizes my shoulder.

Will is breathing heavily. ‘Aemilia – there is something I need to say to you.’

I shake his hand away and keep walking. ‘What is there to say? Unless you will admit that you have robbed me.’

He half-runs, half-walks to keep up with me. ‘I will
not
say so, because it isn’t true.’

I look along the street and cross over, heading for the Bridge. ‘You have played me false, you and your conniving tribe.’

‘Not false, Aemilia – this is how it is done. No play is made by one man alone. You don’t understand this world. You mistake your place in it. Look, mistress, slow down, please…’

‘My place? Would that I had one!’

‘Aemilia, no, you are mistaken…’

I try to outpace him but he matches me step for step. I skip over a dog turd and turn to face him. ‘Don’t you see it? If a man had written that play, and it were put on with some changes, and he were one of your company or a tavern friend, like Dekker, all would be well.’

‘So… what is the difference?’

‘Lord save us, Will! I am a woman! I will get nothing if you don’t acknowledge what I have done. Nothing. I’m not Mary Sidney, or some other clever lady of the manor, who writes her hobby-lines and is fêted by her little retinue. I am alone. I am that turd.’ I point at it. ‘I am nothing.’

He takes a purse from his belt and holds it towards me. ‘Here is gold, if it will help you,’ he said. ‘Once, you said that you could not be with me because of my lowly station. But now I am a gentleman. I have a coat-of-arms… and houses.’

‘Always trying to pay me off! I don’t want your cursed coin. I want to be a poet myself.’

‘The world is not run according to my wishes, any more than it is to yours! You are confusing me with Almighty God!’