Shakespeare's Rebel (22 page)

Something was amiss in Ireland. John did not truly care what. Others’ kingdoms could go hang. He had already sacrificed enough for them. All that concerned him now were his own – his son before him and the woman he loved. If truce meant Essex’s return, it was bad enough news, for he would be held to some sort of account for his absence. But Sir Samuel returning to claim his bride was far, far worse. He had not endured the thirstiest summer in a dozen years only to lose the prize.

‘Come, lad,’ he said, ‘I must talk with your mother.’

But then he did not move. There was a low tavern immediately to his left, the Larkspur, as filthy as the Spoon was clean. He’d frequented it often in the past. The thought came sudden, and hard: he could send Ned ahead, go in and have one whisky. Only weak ale and small beer had washed out his mouth since Shrove Tuesday. He licked his lips. One, then. One would sharpen his wits for the interview that lay before him.

‘Father?’

He looked down. Why was his son looking at him that way?

‘To Mother’s?’ Ned asked.

‘Yes. Yes, come on,’ he muttered, stepping forward again. The first steps though were strangely hard, as if his ankles were held in shackles.

They took the alley down to the rear of the inn, the tumult of the street reduced to a hum. Before them to the south lay fields, stretching away to distant hills whose ridges were dotted with windmills. Every yard of the land was cultivated, and in this late summertime, fecund with crops. Women moved along the rows, gleaning leaves for the sallets that most, save for the very rich, would eat. Others collected cabbages, beetroot and cucumbers – it was the pickling time, the strong savour of vinegar or verjus in each man’s nostrils. The sight was calm contrast to the streets they’d left. John sighed. He had grown up in fields like this. It was . . . unexciting. Was that what he needed?

‘Father?’ Ned had extracted the key from its hidden place in the crevice between bricks. ‘Shall I?’ he said, pointing the metal at the door.

John took a breath. It was all the bracing he would get. He nodded.

Ned turned the key, opened the door. John saw into the garden, the ordered contrast to the sprawling exuberance behind him. Standing in the middle was Tess, a basket of vegetables before her. She was wearing her pickling frock.

She smiled. ‘Welcome,’ she said.

They entered. Ned replaced the key outside, locked the door again with another within. ‘How went the play?’ she asked.

‘Well enough,’ the two Lawleys answered as one. Ned ran to her, gave her a hug, which seemed to surprise her. ‘Greengage?’ she said. She pulled two from the basket, threw one across to John. Ned took his, ran for the inn’s back door. ‘Off so quickly?’ she called.

‘I have my role to work on,’ he replied, taking the stairs two at a time. ‘Father,’ he called back, ‘I’ll see you at the play tomorrow?’

‘That you will. ’Tis a promise,’ John replied.

A nod, and their son was gone. ‘He is in a hurry.’ Tess raised a hand to pull a curl of tawny hair off her forehead. ‘To get somewhere – or to leave us alone, would you say?’

John did not reply. Instead, he looked at the greengage, a bloom like fairy dust upon it. He wiped it on his doublet, bit into the soft flesh. It was as sweet as its promise. It wasn’t whisky, but it would have to do. ‘He cons other roles as well as his own,’ John said, separating flesh from stone with his teeth. ‘He hopes, like many do, that the actor above him will break something so he can step in. He would be Juliet, ready to encounter her Romeo.’

Tess stooped, picked up one of several baskets that lay at her feet, each crammed with produce from her garden. ‘The players will not revive that, surely?’

‘Why not?

‘It is hardly in keeping with the times.’

‘Surely a tale of such love, begun with a single look, is timeless?’ She had reached for another basket. ‘Here. Let me.’ He gathered the three there, threading his arms through the wicker handles. ‘The brewhouse?’

‘Aye.’ She nodded, headed towards the huts behind the inn.

He followed. ‘You did not answer me.’

‘On a tale of timeless love? No, I did not.’

‘Why?’

‘You know why.’ She glanced back at him, one thin eyebrow arched. ‘Really, John, you were not wont to be so brazen.’

‘I know not what you mean.’

She snorted. It was almost the exact sound Ned would make, rich in scorn. ‘Nor such a poor dissembler.’

At least his look of hurt made her laugh. She turned away, pushed the brewhouse door open. Damp warmth filled his face as she led him past the tuns where new brews fermented beside the casks of the near ready. Ducking through hanging wreaths of drying hops, they came to other barrels. The sharp tang of vinegar cut through the malty fug.

He put down his load, resumed his quest. ‘Why do you suspect my words?’

‘Because there is design in them.’

‘Design?’ he queried, eyes wide. ‘What design?’

She looked straight at him. ‘You try to woo me anew, with memories of that first wooing, of a more innocent time. As if it could erase the memories of all the years that followed.’

Those years were not when he wanted to dwell. It was time for a new tactic, one that had worked, on a few glorious occasions, before. ‘Innocence is hardly what I remember of those times,’ he said softly.

‘Nor I.’ She smiled. ‘Though before I first saw you, I considered myself innocent enough.’

Her tone of voice! The laugh had returned to it. A better course, sure – though there were rocks here he could easily still founder on. Gently, he thought, then said, ‘Is it only in my memory that the first look wrought such devastation?’

‘You know it is not.’ She shook her head. ‘Love at first sight only becomes a problem when it is reciprocal.’

‘As ours was.’

She hesitated before replying. ‘As ours was.’

She sighed, then bent to the baskets, removing cucumbers, laying them on the table. Carefully, he thought. There’s hope in that sigh. ‘What did you say the French called it, Tess? It was not a phrase I’d heard before. Nor felt, certain.’

‘
Coup de foudre
,’ she said, still bent, not looking up. But she had stopped sorting.

‘That was it. A strike of lightning,’ he murmured. ‘We were scorched by it, were we not?’

‘Scorched. Yes.’ She unstooped now, looked at him, then above him. ‘I had not known desire till then. Had not been armed to deal with it, beyond precepts and counsels, just so many cold words.’

‘I remember few words, for I was struck dumb. I remember following you to the river bank. I remember . . . taking your hand there.’

‘Another lightning blast. Have not the alchemists dreamed of harnessing the bolt’s power to transform one metal to another?’ She laughed. ‘It changed me, certainly.’

Her voice had lowered still further. He wanted to reach out to her again, see if his touch still possessed that lightning. But he had worked slowly all summer to get her here, to slip past the strictures, slide beyond the ring she wore. He must not rush it now. ‘I did not know I had such an effect. I never had before. There had been women . . .’

An eyebrow raised. ‘Many women.’

‘Not so many.’ He rushed to cover his error. ‘None that transformed me as you did.’ He stepped a little closer to her. ‘And I knew I’d discovered in a moment what those alchemists had searched for through centuries.’

She did not move away. ‘And what was that?’

‘The philosopher’s stone. The quintessence of life itself. Not in what each made. In what we made together.’

Their faces were close enough now for him to take in all that he had not, in an age – the meadow green of her eyes, an exact shade, streaked through with swirls of copper; the scent of her, cutting through the fug in the hut, reminding him of riverbanks, of clean flowing water. The grass he’d laid her on, the bulrushes that had hidden them.

‘Well, sir,’ she said, not withdrawing, only that one eyebrow lifted a little higher, the husk fully restored to her voice. ‘I thought your friend Will held the patent on such poetry. Now I see that he borrows all from you.’

‘Nay, I am blunt for all that. Sharp only in this one thing – my love for you.’

It was the time. Leaning closer, he kissed her.

She did not resist him. Yielded as she’d always done, once she decided – completely as she had that first time, as she had perhaps half a dozen times since over the years between. She was dressed for the tavern, not the court, and no farthingales pressed against him, preventing his body reaching hers. They were locked from lips to toes, and in the middle he felt the instant surge he always did with her, that had been diminished not a jot by time.

She felt it too, gave back, till she could no more. ‘No, John, no,’ she whispered. But she did not push him away with more than words.

‘And you claim that
Romeo and Juliet
will not still play,’ he said, his voice as low as hers. He’d pulled back a fraction to say it – and realised his mistake. He’d brought in the outside world again – especially the playhouse – and it was between them in an instant.

‘No, John, no,’ she said again, differently, as firm as the hand that was suddenly in his chest, pushing him back. ‘We must not.’

He reached, as a drowning man will reach. ‘Tess, why . . . ?’

‘Why?’ She slipped from between his arms, stepped away, smoothing down her dress, reaching up to that tress of hair come astray, returning it to its prison. ‘You have heard, haven’t you? ’Tis why you are so bold now. Desperate, rather. For the wars are over.’

He felt anger replace his forestalled lust, tried to damp it down. ‘The wars are not over, Tess. Paused. That’s all a truce is.’

‘Truce?’ Her eyes narrowed. ‘Ned told you of my letter, did he not?’

‘He did not,’ he lied. He did not want his spy exposed. ‘The rumour is upon the street.’ He went on, overriding her interruption, ‘And soldiers do not leave at a truce. They hammer out their armour, sharpen their blades and wait for combat to recommence.’

‘Nevertheless.’ She had stepped closer again, not with desire, but to search his eyes. ‘You fear that a truce might send some home, do you not? My fiancé, for instance. That is why you are so bold.’

‘I thought my boldness was my charm.’ His smile did not move her, and he continued in a different, humbler tone, ‘If I am bold, it is only that I believe I have some hope. I am back with the players’ – a half-truth, but one he could build on – ‘and I have been moderate the summer long. I have . . .’

He trailed off under her gaze. It had changed, from accusation to something else. He was terrified that he saw pity there – his observation immediately confirmed. ‘Oh John,’ she said, ‘I have been delighted in your . . . rehabilitation. It has lasted longer . . .’ She paused, continued, ‘. . . lasted a long time. And Ned has so enjoyed your company all summer. I am sorry, though, if my delight has been misinterpreted as anything more . . .’ She shook her head. ‘No. My troth is plighted to Sir Samuel. And whether he comes home soon, or afterwards, I will await him. For I gave him my word.’

He stared at her, sought some giving in the firmness he’d always known in her. He could see none. That anger pulsed again. ‘And what was this?’ He gestured to the table. ‘I know what I feel. I know you feel the same.’

‘Oh John,’ she said again, then laughed. ‘You will always have an alchemist’s power over me. It is not something I can defend against . . . except in this’ – she raised her hand, and Despair’s ring gleamed faintly – ‘and in the knowledge that the life your lightning ripped me from, I may have again.’ She glanced around. ‘Yet I must take care and not let myself be alone with you. For it seems my flesh is still . . . transmutable.’

She said this last as she crossed to the door. Swinging it wide, she gestured him outside. He went slowly to her, past her. He thought of all the things he could have said, and had not said. Of all the weapons he had not yet unsheathed. But he, the master of so many, had none to reach for under her firm stare.

He crossed to the garden’s gate. ‘You will still accompany me tomorrow to see our son perform?’ he said, over his shoulder.

She smiled. ‘Of course. We promised Ned, did we not? His parents together, cheering him on. He has been disappointed in so much in his life; he will not be in . . . in that.’ She faltered at the reproof in her words, continued more gently. ‘Come for me at eleven.’

‘I will.’

He turned the key. ‘Can I not offer you an ale within?’ she called.

He did not answer her, just waved, opened the door, exited. He could not sit in her tavern and drink her beer, however good it was.

He needed another place. He craved a different drink.

XVI

Lost

The Larkspur was nearest and of a dark dinginess to match his mood. It was in part a brothel, stairs leading to upper rooms with cots; even on the ground floor there were alcoves that curtains could be pulled across to conceal acts that did not warrant a tedious climb nor many minutes. Several of these were drawn, but fortunately the tavern was crowded enough that its noise dulled all others. He did not need to hear lust being slaked, however tawdry the transaction.

At the trestle before the casks, he hesitated. He knew what he wanted, and the urge to purchase a bottle of aqua vitae, and drink it all himself, near overpowered him. He wrestled with that for a full minute as the landlord served others. When the man returned, John slapped down a mill sixpence for a tankard of the double double – a compromise; it was the strongest ale they served. Praising himself for his restraint, he turned, spied a stool in a corner being vacated. The apprentice who had just lowered himself on to it relinquished it without a murmur. Perhaps it was on seeing John’s eyes.

He drank off half the tankard at a clip, felt its effects almost immediately. It was the most potent thing he’d had all summer. He would have to be careful. Double double ale was not whisky. Yet it could weaken him enough to put him on the path to his true desire.

His true desire? What had small beer and sobriety achieved for him since Shrove Tuesday? A limping lord upon the platform, a few fights arranged, both of which had given him enough coin for ale, humble pie and little else. It had not given him what he truly sought – a troth plight sundered, another joined, with him again and forever in his sweet Tess’s bed.