License to Quill (33 page)

The rider reined her Turcoman and looked down at the playwright as a bloodied raven circled the scene and then settled on her shoulder. The hooded woman appeared as Death incarnate.

The bard slipped out of consciousness and was taken away by the darkness.

 

Chapter XXXV

The Covert Operation

“Mistress Shakespeare?”

The woman previously known as Anne Hathaway opened her bedroom door wearing nothing but the white smock she had been sleeping in. “What is it?” she asked her servant, who was standing in the hallway with a candle.

“There is a lady here to see you,” replied the woman. “A dark lady. She says she knows you.”

“What's her name?” Anne murmured, for she knew several shades of dark ladies.

“Bianca.”

“Mmhmm…” Anne sighed with a sleepy smile until she realized she was not dreaming. “What?” she gasped. “She's here?”

“She's at the door, mistress.”

Anne Shakespeare's jaw dropped. “Let her in,” she ordered. “And tell her that I will be down shortly.” Anne disappeared back into her room to dress.

“Mistress?” the servant added.

Anne returned with impatient eyes.

“I don't think this can wait at all. The lady—” There was a loud crash downstairs followed by heavy moaning. “It appears she has your husband.”

Anne Shakespeare arched an eyebrow and rapped her nails against the doorframe. “How very interesting.”

“What is it?” cooed the woman in Anne's bed.

“You need to leave,” replied Mistress Shakespeare.

*   *   *

Anne walked down the winding stairs of New Place, the stately Shakespeare home at Stratford-upon-Avon, to find her husband sprawled on his belly across their dining room table. The battered playwright groaned with confusion while the Dark Lady cut his clothes off with scissors.

“Keep my daughters in their rooms,” Anne told her servant. “And see to it that we are not disturbed.”

“Yes, Mistress Shakespeare.”

The servant spirited back upstairs while Anne approached the tall woman stripping her husband. “Bianca,” she greeted her.

The Dark Lady locked eyes with the somber woman she had not seen in more than a decade. “Anne,” she whispered breathlessly. The two ladies embraced and kissed. “I am so sorry it has been so long.”

“Think nothing of it.” Anne's eyes turned to the groaning playwright. “What have you done to my husband?”

“It was not me this time. I swear it.” The Dark Lady whisked back to the bard while Anne lit the room's candles. “Your husband has been badly wounded.”

“Doing what?”

Bianca's dark eyes shifted. “Do you know what your husband has been up to recently?”

“He doesn't tell me, and I don't ask questions. It is a mutual ignorance. I assume he has gotten himself into trouble again.”

“It's worse than ever, I'm afraid. The government reactivated him last year. He has been meeting with dangerous people. The cunning folk. They did this to him.” Bianca started unpacking her surgeon's kit in a hurry.

Anne sighed. “And yourself?”

“I had to keep an eye on him this entire time. Through rain and sleet and snow. It has
not
been pleasant,” Bianca fumed. “The government forced me back into this.”

“That's not what I meant. Are
you
hurt?” Anne corrected. “Do you need help?”

Openness replaced the anger in Bianca's almond-shaped eyes. “I am unhurt, but … tired. It has been a trying year, Anne. Really. I thought I was free of this life. I was moving on. But Anne…” The Dark Lady shut her eyes and shook her head. “I will always be a prisoner to these people.”

Anne stepped closer and held Bianca's hand. “I am so sorry. For everything.”

The Dark Lady exhaled with eyes downcast. “Also, please know I was sorry to hear about Hamnet.” Anne and William Shakespeare's only son was just eleven years old when he died of plague.

“Bless you,” his mother replied. “I have been surviving. Moving here helped.” Anne looked over her lovely home, the second largest in Stratford. “I couldn't live in our old house anymore. All those memories … they haunted me.”

“I know what that's like. All I have are memories. Nothing more.” Bianca's thoughts turned to her parents back in Italy, and the two ladies embraced.

The playwright screamed.

Anne and Bianca turned back to William. “What's wrong with him?”

“Your husband was poisoned by cunning folk in the Forest of Arden. He also fell from his horse while escaping.”

“What was he poisoned with?”

“I don't know. He already took something to counteract it-
it
-it-
it
.”

The bard's hearing faded in and out.

“His delirium is getting worse-worse-
worse-worse
.”

“
Will he live-live
-live-live?”

The Dark Lady looked the playwright over and touched his neck in several places. His eyelids flickered but then went lax. “Yes,” she said. “But it will not be pleasant. I have worked under similar circumstances. He is stricken with a brain fever, and his injuries require surgery.”

Anne studied her husband's naked body. “I will move my daughters to another wing and make sure my servants do not disturb you. Will you be needing anything to work with?”

“Yes, please. I need sewing needles, rope, and linens. And several plants from your garden, including all your roses.”

“Be my guest,” Anne replied. “They were his favorite flowers. Not mine.”

Bianca smirked as she returned to her surgeon's kit. “I will also need to use one of your barns for the next few hours.”

Anne's brow furrowed. “What for-for-
for-for
?”

“
Before I work-work
-work-work on your husband, I will need to operate on his horse-horse-
horse-horse
.”

The bard fell asleep.

*   *   *

Shakespeare slipped in and out of consciousness for the next several hours. Whenever he opened his eyes, he could not recognize his surroundings. His hallucinations distorted everything. All his imaginings were assaulting him at once: his plays, the conspirators, Macbeth, the witches; everything. The Arden in particular haunted Shakespeare as Aston's whinnies reawakened his fears. Even inside his house, he felt ensnared by the ancient forest as if its roots were wrapping themselves around his arms and legs.

In reality, Anne and Bianca were tying the psychedelic playwright down to his table. “I heard everything from the windows.”

“I fear the whole town heard,” the surgeon groaned.

“How did it go?”

“
Horrendous
. That horse resisted my every move. I had to tie him down as well.” Bianca's arms were covered up to her elbows in Aston's blood. “I know he's trained to be that way, but it interfered with every second I spent on him.”

Anne shook her head. “Why is that beast so important?”

“Orders.” Bianca scowled. “We need to bring him back to London. The government values that horse's life more than your husband's.” The Dark Lady tightened the final strap on Shakespeare and then took a step back.

“You look like you could use some rest.”

“I will. After this. We cannot wait any longer.” The Dark Lady picked up a stack of playing cards and tore them open for their salts.

“What's wrong with him?”

Bianca opened her copy of
De humani corporis fabrica
with her bloody hands. “Your husband suffered an ax blow here,” she said, pointing to the bone marked “R” in an illustration of a figure with its skin stripped off its back.
*
“It's called the scapula, and I may have to reset it or remove it, depending on how damaged it is.”

“How damaged is it?”

“I'll find out once I get in there,” said Bianca, pointing her bloodied lancet to the enormous bruise on Shakespeare's shoulder. A thick red line ran down its middle where Thomas Percy's ax had hit the bone.

The Dark Lady took a breath and then looked to Anne. “Are you sure you're comfortable seeing this?”

“Bianca, I've had three children. And two of them were twins.”

“How was that, by the way?” Bianca wiped the horsehairs from her knife against her blood-covered apron.

“It was agony,” Anne grumbled. “I had Judith and Hamnet in the middle of the winter. It took the midwife hours to arrive.”

“I am sorry you had to suffer like that.”

Anne pointed her chin at her husband. “It's his fault. I never planned on having children, but after Susanna, we were married and he insisted on trying for a son.” Looking to change the subject, Anne turned and asked: “Are you in that line of work as well?”

“Midwifery?” Bianca smiled. “No. Although I have done a few caesarean sections.”

“That sounds barbaric.” Anne winced.

“Quite the opposite. It can be scary, though, considering the circumstances. It requires a steady hand. Could you pass that potion, please?”

Anne handed the Dark Lady her dwale, a painkiller prepared using three teaspoons each of boar bile, vinegar, opium, hemlock, bryony, henbane, and some lettuce from the garden, mixed and boiled.
*
Although not a wholly effective anesthetic, it was better than nothing. Bianca dropped three spoonfuls into some wine and fed the mixture to the injured Shakespeare. After waiting a few minutes for the dwale to work, the Dark Lady placed a leather braid between the playwright's teeth. “Hold this,” she instructed Anne.

“What is that for?”

“So he doesn't bite through his tongue when I cut into him-
him-him-him
…”

The bard faded out of consciousness, and the operation began.

*   *   *

Leather.

Leather.

Leather.

“Leather?”

“I need all the leather in this house! Enough to make a dress with.”

“Why?”

“Please, Anne. I need this quickly. If he has the plague, we have to protect ourselves.”

Anne Shakespeare had the breath sucked out of her. “The plague? How do you know he's suffering from that?”

“I have no idea what these witches put inside him! If his fever and delirium persist—”

Plague!

The bard blacked out just from the thought of it.

*   *   *

Shakespeare opened his eyes on what felt like a different day even though it was less than an hour after the previous conversation. He turned his head and found Bianca seated at a table with a pile of leather in front of her: belts, boots, an apron, and virtually every one of the playwright's kidskin gloves. Anne was nowhere to be seen, but the bard could hear her ordering her servants to find them more. Bianca also had two drinking cups with glass bottoms in front of her. After poking the circles out, she held them up to her eyes to see through them. Satisfied, she set them down and resumed her stitching.

Behind the surgeon, a fire was burning and a cauldron bubbled.

The bard shut his eyes and fell asleep to the pleasant aroma of candle wax.

*   *   *

“What is that you're mashing?”

“Rose petals.”

“Lovely fragrance.”

“Isn't it?”

“It masks some of the stench in here.”

The bard heard laughter.

“What are they for?”

“I'm mixing them with several other ingredients to make some pills. We've been experimenting with them in London. A French doctor claims they are quite effective at treating plague.”
*

“Are you sure that's what my husband has?”

“No. But we have to be safe.”

There was a pause.

“Do all doctors wear that costume?”

“No, but I remember hearing about Venetian doctors wearing something similar. I've been trying to convince Bacon to use these in the city, but he's more concerned with shooting stars at the moment.”

“Bacon?”

“Sorry. Forget I said that.”

There was another pause.

“It's terrifying. You will look like an enormous crow in that dress.”

The bard heard laughter.

“Would you like me to make one for you as well?”

“Could you?”

“Are you serious?”

“You said yourself we need to protect ourselves, and I am not leaving this house.”

There was a third and final pause.

“I will need more leather.”

Shakespeare drifted off to the sound of footsteps.

*   *   *

“We have to roll him onto his back. Would you help me?”

“Like this?”

Four sticky hands pressed against the bard's sweaty skin.

“Yes. Pull him toward you. Just be gentle.”

“How gentle?”

“Argh!” Shakespeare roared with pain as every bone and muscle Bianca had been working on shifted back into place.

“That was too rough.”

“Sorry, William!”

“Shhh! He's waking.”

The playwright's eyes flickered open.

“Good morning, Will,” said a familiar but muffled voice.

Two dark figures appeared out of focus.

The bard squinted, and then his eyes widened in terror.

Two leather-faced monstrosities were looking down at him like giant ravens. Their features were expressionless and their faces protruded outward in enormous, birdlike beaks. Their stitched-up skin was waxy and their eyes doubled as goggles. From Shakespeare's angle on the table, it appeared as if these birds were looming over his deathbed, deciding which part of his fallen flesh to strip off first.

And the most frightening thing of all: this was not a fever dream. It was real.