Dark Aemilia (34 page)

Will appears, dressed in spectral black, his face daubed with stage blood, and kneels beside him.

‘Help him, in God’s name!’ I say. ‘What happened?’

‘The crane fell – I didn’t see… He is still; he isn’t breathing!’ cries Burbage.

‘Fetch him wine!’ calls Will, and a Scots lord hurries off.

But who’s that, standing by the empty chair? A cloaked figure, immobile, head bowed. I look closer. I take a step towards it, and then it lifts its head. The face is bone-white, and translucent, fading in and out of my vision. There’s no skill with stage paint that can ape such an effect. This is the creature I have summoned, cloaked in fog and falling rain. Lilith’s yellow eyes regard the scene without expression, but her mouth is twisted in a smile.

‘Thou, demon!’ I shout. ‘By God, why don’t you go back to the place where you belong?’

The demon shifts, still looking straight at me, but doesn’t speak.

‘I did not want this! I didn’t say that anyone should
die
!’

There is a voice in my head. ‘
I am Lilith. I am the taker of children. You said they stole your play – now you have your vengeance. This play is cursed.’

‘Go down to Hell, and leave us,’ I scream. ‘You have done your evil now.’

The spirit starts to move slowly towards Tom and I run between them, hands outspread. ‘Leave him alone! Fiend! Leave the boy alone, and get thee back to Hell!’

Dick Burbage is sitting on the stage. He is weeping and stroking Tom’s hair. Field is shouting, Heminge is running into the tiring-room. And Will is staring at me, eyes livid through the streaks of painted gore.

‘What – Aemilia? What is this? Why are you shouting at thin air?’

The spectre moves slowly across the stage. Not walking, but moving like sea mist. It stops by the dead boy, and stares down at him.

I push Will away. The spectre looks at me again.

‘Lilith!’ I roar, so fiercely that I scrape my throat. ‘Thou foul demon! Thou evil, hungry, wicked monster! Quit this place, quit it, I command you!’

‘Tom? My Thomas?’ There’s another figure now, running across the stage, her fine clothes soaked and torn. ‘Oh, my child!’ she screams. ‘Holy Mother! Mary! Spare him! Spare him!’ She collapses on top of him, sobbing out half-lucid prayers. There is a crack of thunder and a spike of lightning and then I hear the shouts of the audience.

‘What evil has been done?’ cries one voice.

‘The Devil is in this place!’ calls another. ‘Who called on Satan?’

Lilith is smiling.

‘There she is!’ I cry. ‘Satan’s agent! She killed Tom! She murdered him!’ I look at Anne, weeping, prostrate, and at the dark crowd that heaves below me. I point at the shadowed figure. ‘She – Lilith! Look! She has brought this curse upon the play!’

‘
Lilith
?’ says Will. ‘A hag in a fireside fable? Are you
mad
?’

‘What?’ Anne’s head swivels till she sees me. ‘Why do you speak of black magic, over the body of my son?’

‘She saw the demon!’ shouts one of the voices from the crowd.

‘That woman there – she spoke to it! She sees it still!’ The dark faces are turned towards me.

‘She conjured a demon!’

‘Conjured Death!’

‘Conjured the Devil! Foul, unnatural witch.’

‘I did not call the Devil!’ I turn to face the crowd, but can see only darkness and rain.

Anne leaves Tom’s side and walks unsteadily towards me. ‘What evil have you done, Aemilia? You saw it – you knew something was wrong! You saw it before Tom fell!’

‘I saw Lilith.’

‘Saw a
demon
? With my son?’

‘I drew a circle,’ I say. ‘At Deptford.’ As if that mattered. ‘I made a spell.’

‘What
spell
is this? What
circle
? Are you God Himself now, that can take a life at whim?’

‘I meant no harm!’ I scream, but Lilith is moving steadily towards me. ‘Get thee behind me! Get thee behind me!’ I shout, and I grab a flaming torch and lunge at her, but Will snatches it away.

Anne runs at me, her face riven with grief and rage. ‘You killed him! With your wickedness and witchery and pride! You called on Satan and it was my son who took the punishment!’

‘Anne! Listen to me… Anne! I beg you…’

‘I’ll kill you for this, you demon-loving bitch…’ With that she claws my face with her nails.

An almighty roar: thunder, or the crowd? I fall backwards, down into the dark.

There is another flash of lightning. All is white light for an instant, and I crawl on all fours into the crowd, scrabbling through the filthy mud. Above me I hear voices shouting. The air is raging, and the mob has rushed forward, lured by the scent of death.

‘Where is she?’

‘Where is the witch?’

‘She has turned herself into a bat!’

‘She has made herself invisible!’

As soon as I dare, I scramble to my feet, drenched and slimed with mud. Out. Out. I must get out. Blindly, I make my way away from the noise.

‘Seek her!’

‘Find her!’

‘Burn her!’

For a few moments I think this fury might work in my favour, for the crowd is shouting at the stage, as if expecting me to reappear at any moment. But as I reach the doorway the gatherer looks up from his pot of entrance coin.

‘She’s here – the one who called the demon!’ he shouts, lunging towards me.

I slip past him, and pull the catch back on the heavy door. I feel a hand upon my shoulder, and bite hard till I taste blood. There’s a scream of pain; the door opens. Rain and lightning. I kick off my pattens and I run. Helter-skelter I go, slipping in the mud, wading through deep-rutted puddles, my skirts clutched to my chest.

‘She has called the Devil!’

‘She is a witch! Catch the witch!’

My feet move faster, and I run as I have never done in all my life. But how can I outdistance a horde of burly men? I think of Henry and Marie, waiting for me. Oh, Lord God! What have I done? What have I done to Tom? Someone catches my skirt and it tears away; I run on in nothing but my soaking undershift. My hands and feet are bleeding. Sharp stones and brambles snare me as I run. But I will
not
die. I will
not
.

The ground is firmer when I reach the harbour, and the street that borders the river’s edge. There are houses here, of the common sort, and candles burning in the windows. I smell the river-stench. The wind blows keener than before. I run down an alley and beat as loudly as I can upon the first door I come to, screaming and wailing, for no words will come.

A head appears from an upstairs window. ‘Who’s there?’

I find my voice at last. ‘Aemilia Lanyer, a poor housewife! The mob are after me – please let me in!’ I look back and see flaring torch-light at the far end of the alley. I run on, and beat upon another door.

‘Away, witch!’ shouts somebody inside.

I knock again. But there’s no answer, just the rain. I run till I reach the end of the alleyway – the voices are louder, I can smell the torch-pitch as they gather in a crowd behind me. Then my hands meet a rough wall, and my torn fingers feel upwards and sideways. The wall is high and wide – it blocks the way. I look round, and see the faces in the spluttering firelight. My breath comes in shuddering sobs. This is it. This is Death.

For a moment the mob is silent. The people are afraid. Then a man as tall as a birch tree, a veritable giant, marches forward and says, ‘Witch! You killed that boy! You called that demon!’

And the accusation is repeated by the crowd behind him, and a rain of heavy objects falls down upon me – rotted carrots, rat skulls and jagged stones. I shall die like Joan, with a cave mouth
for a face. I cover my head with my arms and turn my back, and hear my own scream as the missiles find their mark. A slippery rope is slung around my head; I feel it screwing tight into my neck as they pull me back with them along the alley. I walk silently, thoughtless, speechless, pissing with fear.

‘Find a tree!’

‘A Judas tree, and string her from it.’

I am pulled and shoved from all sides. Someone punches my belly, and when I look down I see I am wearing nothing but torn rags. Blood is pouring from my wounds. I feel nothing; I do not know what I am. The earth? The sky? The Beast? Looking up, I see the bright upper windows, and the heads of the watchers set black against the glow. There are little children calling questions and a babe in arms, dancing.

I see my father’s face, bending towards me, his black eyes and his curled beard. I hear the sweet harmony of his recorder, making patterns in the air. I see my mother, laughing, in Lady Susan’s garden. A swan, retreating from the green bank, creasing the silver image of the sky. Will, turning from a knot of players, smiling at the sight of me. Henry, bouncing his ball along Long Ditch in the sunshine. Tom Flood, lying dead upon the stage.

I call out, ‘Lord forgive me! Lord forgive me! I have sinned and I repent of it!
Mea culpa
!
Mea culpa
!
’

There is a sound. Deep in the earth, far above in the heavens, inside my head. What is it? I seize the noose with my hands, and struggle to loosen the rope around my neck. What is that sound? I know I have heard it before. Louder now, louder, like drumming.

‘Here is the tree!’

‘Here is the place. Hang her here.’

The rope pulls again, and I gag as it grips my throat. The sound is not drums but hoof-beats.
Those hooves are coming for
me
. A rescuer, or the Black Huntsman and his storm-dogs, sent from Hell?
I want to know
. I work my fingers between the wet rope and my neck. And then I find my voice, dry and sore.

‘Why are you doing this?’

The giant speaks. ‘To punish you for murder.’

Someone else says, ‘To punish you for witchcraft.’

‘For conjuring and evil.’

‘Then take me to the King, and let him try me.’ I cough and retch. My tongue cleaves to the roof of my mouth. ‘He has studied witchcraft… Let
him
try me.’

‘The King won’t want to be bothered with the likes of you,’ says the giant. ‘A common witch.’

I can hear the hoof-beats more clearly now. Not of the air, or in my head, but on the ground. Yet between me and this sound there is a wall of bodies. In the rippling light of flares and shadows I see faces of every kind, some comely, some deformed, some scored with wrinkles. Each is distorted with the same murderous intent, more hobgoblin than human. Reason will not work with such a mob as this.

‘If you kill me, what good will that do?’ I ask, coughing and retching again.

‘The good will be your death; no more is needed,’ the giant shouts. ‘String her up, there! String her up!’

But the rope stays slack. They are watching me. Words swim into my head, and I close my eyes and shout them out. ‘
Come, you spirits that tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here, and fill me, from the crown to the toe, top-full of direst cruelty!’

My voice is a raven-croak, sounding strange and terrible even to myself, but I am afraid to stop in case this breaks the spell.

‘
Make thick my blood; stop up th’access and passage to remorse, that no compunctious visitings of Nature shake my fell purpose, or keep peace between th’effect and it!’
The words seem to warm me, and with each syllable, my strength grows.

‘String her up!’ shouts the giant again.

And someone says, ‘I dare not!’

I grow taller and bolder as I speak. ‘
Come to my woman’s breasts, and take my milk for gall, you murth’ring ministers, wherever in your sightless substances you wait on Nature’s mischief!’

‘Slash her! Slit her open!’

‘Use her guts to gag her!’

‘We are afraid!’

I throw my head back, and scream at the sky. ‘
Come, thick Night, and pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell, that my keen knife see not the wound it makes – nor Heaven peep through the blanket of the dark, to cry “HOLD! HOLD!”’

The crowd falls back, and I hear sobbing.

‘God protect us!’

‘God save us, this is Beelzebub himself.’

With a roar of rage the giant leaps forward. The rope jerks and someone drags my hands away. The rope is pulled tight around my throat. ‘Let it be quick, Lord,’ I pray. ‘Let me go quickly!’

‘Ready, ho! Haul her up!’

My feet are lifted from the ground and all is agony and blackness. But the hoof-beats still come. There is a clap of thunder and screaming all around me. A horse squeals, men shout, there is a great crack, then the noise begins to fade.

Darkness, nothingness.

A swish of air above my head. I am falling. I am on the ground coughing and puking. I look up. The severed rope is dangling from the hanging tree. The black destrier from the Globe is rearing up against the bright house windows. There is a hooded figure clinging to it.

Satan has come to take me down to Hell. He lifts me from the ground and sets me on the saddle before him, then holds me tightly as the snorting horse gallops headlong through the mob. There are shouts and screams, hands clawing at me. The beast’s back rocks beneath me as we charge into the storm.

Is this the road to Hades? If so, it’s lined with the great houses of Camm Row, and the messy rooftops of Long Ditch. I look down, at the black-clad arm of the horseman who has saved me. It is the arm of a living man. We reach a small house, and the horseman halts his mount and jumps down. He reaches up and helps me to the ground.

Will’s face is daubed with stage blood, and his eyes are rimmed with black.

‘By God, Aemilia, what have you done?’

‘I summoned Lilith,’ I whisper. ‘I drew a circle. I had a book.’

He wipes his hand across his eyes. ‘Why, in Christ’s name? Why dabble in such nonsense?’

‘To stop the play! To end it! But not – ’

‘For pity’s sake!’

‘Not to do harm to anyone! Not to Tom!’

‘What lunacy was this?’

I hide my face.

‘What manner of falling off from what you were, and what you could be?’

‘May God forgive me.’

Silence.

‘Do you hate me so much?’ he asks.

‘No. It wasn’t hatred that drove me to it.’

‘What else could it have been? It surely wasn’t love!’

‘How do you know?’

‘God in Heaven,’ he says. ‘If this
is
love, then we must leave it. Once and for all, and till we die.’

‘Will…’

‘You have driven yourself mad,’ he says. ‘You see what is not there, and are blind to plain truth.’

‘No!’ I cry. ‘Lilith was there – upon the stage. She killed Tom. I swear it.’

‘God rest that dear boy’s soul!’ says Will. ‘He was the merriest, sweetest fellow I ever knew.’ He pauses. ‘The thing that killed him, Aemilia, was the falling crane. The crane
I
had constructed, so that we could have the best effects in London. If anyone is to blame, it’s me. In this actual world.’

‘Yes, but she was there! Lilith made it happen! She is the child-taker, and I called her, and she killed Anne’s son!’ I begin to weep, hopeless, tearless, grating sobs that hurt my chest.

Will puts his arms around me and holds for a long while. Then, very gently, he pushes me away. ‘Let me say only this…’ he begins.

‘Don’t twist the knife! I couldn’t bear it!’

‘Aemilia. Calm yourself. You are not a murderer.’

‘I cannot calm myself! I cannot! Because I
am
!’

‘Look at me. Look at me… Every evening, every morning, every moment – my love, my sweet girl. Aemilia, I think of you.’

‘Will, no…’

‘You have read my plays.’

‘Yes.’

‘Come back to this world. Come back to your true self. Didn’t you see how it was? That all my heroines are versions of my Dark Aemilia? Black-eyed Rosaline, clever Portia, the Egyptian Queen who drove poor Anthony to madness – all you! All you. Each one.’

‘Don’t… don’t say this.’

‘I never was so happy, never so much myself, as I was when I was with you. When I loved you.’

‘Will.’

‘And you loved me.’

I hang my head. Rainwater swirls around our feet.

‘Henry,’ says Will. ‘The boy – he is the two of us. I live in him, with you. It’s only this that has sustained me. Only this, and writing. The recreation of my sweet lost lady in my words.’

‘There is no… future for us, is there?’ I say, my tears flowing from the sky. ‘Only your words are left.’

Will says nothing. We embrace, and I know this is for the last time.