The Dark Lady's Mask (5 page)

As it happened, James Burbage's public theater had just opened in Shoreditch, a short walk from their home. The theater was all anyone could talk about, for it had cost Burbage seven hundred pounds, an unheard of sum, and yet he expected to turn a profit from it. A second public theater had opened in the Liberty of Blackfriars, but that was reserved for the nobility. The Shoreditch playhouse was built to pack in as many of the common rabble as could pay a penny to get in the door. Farmhands and dairymaids, brewers and draymen from the surrounding countryside streamed in. Mother complained about the noise and the many undesirables congregating in their district and relieving themselves in their hedges.

Robert Dudley's acting troupe, Leicester's Men, was putting on the very first play, and they required musicians, providing an ideal opportunity for Papa and his brothers.

“Such employment will stain our reputation,” Mother said.

Their curate preached that the theater was a sinkhole of sin, no better than a bawdy house. But Papa, who looked happy for the first time in weeks, would not be dissuaded.

“The play is
Bucolia,
” he said, using his most coaxing voice with Mother. “An English translation of Virgil's
Eclogues.
Virgil, the greatest of the Latin poets.”

Aemilia trembled in anticipation. Papa had told her such intriguing stories of the plays and masques at court—she couldn't imagine a more wondrous spectacle.

“May I go?” She reached to clasp his hand.

“Under no circumstances,” Mother said. “The playhouse is no place for a respectable girl from a good family.”

A
FEW DAYS LATER
, when Mother was at the market, Jasper Bassano called in.

Uncle Antonio's seventh son and the youngest of her paternal first cousins, Jasper was the closest thing Aemilia had to a brother. Just a year older than she was, he seemed so much more worldly. As a boy, his future was a clearly marked path—he would become a court musician like his father. Already Jasper could play the trumpet, the viol, the recorder, the lute, the cornett, and the shawm.

“Come along with me and see the play,” Jasper said.

“I'm forbidden!” Aemilia nearly spat in her frustration. “Because I'm a girl.”

Jasper gave her his most conspiratorial grin. “It would be different if you were a boy.”

From his satchel he pulled out a boy's doublet and a pair of breeches.

“I dare you,” he said, dangling the garments before her.

“Ha!” Fire danced in her heart as she snatched the clothes from him and ran off to change.

H
ER HAIR STUFFED UNDER
a cap, Aemilia sprinted off to the Shoreditch playhouse, racing Jasper.

Winded and panting, they each paid a penny to enter the inner court, open to the sky. Three tiers of galleries rose around it. For an extra penny, you could stand in the galleries and get a better view, Jasper told her, and for three pennies, you could even sit upon a stool. But Aemilia and Jasper were stuck with the groundlings and couldn't see a thing until they barged their way to the thrust stage where they spotted Jasper's father and the other uncles in the musicians' gallery. Only Papa was missing. Aemilia's heart drummed in fear. Was he ill?

Her uncles were too busy struggling to tune their instruments over the roar of the crowd to notice Jasper—or Aemilia in her disguise. For this she was grateful. If Mother found out, she'd surely thrash her. Even Mistress Locke would despair of her and say she was no better than a heathen. Never had Aemilia stood so close to so many strange men, many of them reeking of spirits though it was only noon. But both Jasper's presence and her boy's clothes protected her, and she felt no fear, only a mad curiosity and impatience for the play to begin.

Her uncles began to play music so sweet that a hush fell over everyone, even the roughest quarrymen in the crowd. As the music swelled, figures appeared on the stage. Aemilia cried out in delight to see Papa with a wreath of ivy on his graying head. He carried a crook and wore a roughly woven shepherd's smock, but when he opened his mouth, poetry poured forth, as bright as sunlight dancing on a stream.

Wonderment overwhelmed Aemilia—Papa wasn't just a musician but also a player!

“The minstrel stepped in,” a knowing voice behind them muttered, “because the actor was too drunk to go on stage.”

“
Sh,
” Aemilia hissed.

The stage transported her to a lost and long ago place called Arcadia, peopled by shepherds who had no other labor but to sing and recite poetry of yearning and love. The place seemed as perfect as Eden in the Geneva Bible, except it was full of gods and goddesses who miraculously swooped down from a trapdoor in the stage ceiling, painted to resemble the starry heavens, and descended to the main stage upon a wire to the accompaniment of her uncles' trumpets and shawm. There was Pan, half goat and half man, playing his pipes. Pallas appeared with her helmet and spear. The dancing nymphs with their flowing blond tresses made Aemilia miss Angela all the more keenly.

“I thought girls weren't allowed on stage,” she whispered to Jasper.

Her cousin laughed as though she were the biggest fool in Middlesex. “They're not
girls.
They're boys in wigs.”

The illusion seemed so real. Slender and graceful with their red lips and soft hands and flowing skirts, the nymphs and naiads circled around Alexis, the fair shepherd boy, while the herdsmen praised his beauty.

“The ancients thought nothing amiss with buggery,” Jasper whispered with a wicked laugh, for he liked to shock her. “They wrote poems about it!”

“What's buggery?” Aemilia asked, pitching her voice to be heard.

His face burning red, Jasper clapped his hand over her mouth while the men around them glared or even winked.

Ignoring them, Aemilia gave her entire attention to the spectacle on stage. As she stared thunderstruck at Papa, he caught her eye and gazed back with both reproach for disobeying Mother and shock at her being dressed as a boy. Then his eyes softened, and she knew he would keep her secret and never betray her. As it transpired, he replaced the stolen penny from Mother's housekeeping money before she even noticed it was missing.

T
HREE WEEKS HAD GONE
by since Angela's wedding.

“We
must
go visit her,” Aemilia clamored to Mother. She had never been separated from her sister for so long.

But that very morning, Mother opened their front door to see Francis Holland looking every inch the gentleman with his golden earring and perfumed handkerchief.

“Where's Angela?” Aemilia demanded.
Why had he come without her?

Her brother-in-law only brushed her away while Mother blustered past to fuss over him, opening their last flask of Canary wine in his honor.

“How is our Angela?” Mother only presumed to ask this after Master Holland was seated in their best chair with the carved armrests.

“Oh, she is fine,” he said. “But for one thing.”

Aemilia and her mother froze.

“Might I trouble you for one small favor, Mistress Bassano? Could you lend us a few sovereigns? I'm afraid I'm in need of it. Business matters,” he said ruefully. “Of course, I shall pay you back promptly. I ask for Angela's sake.”

Though Aemilia glared fixedly at his face, his entire attention was on Mother who turned bright pink.

“Oh, sir! My husband is out and we haven't that much money in the house.”

Rising from his chair, Master Holland loomed over Mother, who seemed to shrink inside his shadow. “Are you quite certain? I thought Master Bassano was in the habit of hiding away a few coins here and there. Is he not doing well these days, working in the theater, so I hear?”

The idea of Master Holland prying behind panels in search of Papa's hard-won savings made Aemilia seethe.

“Papa gave you one hundred pounds,” she told him.

Mother's face darkened as she ordered her from the room, yet it was the glint of fury in Master Holland's eyes that frightened Aemilia. Her heart thumped in panic, but she refused to leave until she'd had the last word.

“Ten thousand mischiefs in your guts!” she screamed in her brother-in-law's face before she darted away.

H
OURS LATER, WHEN
P
APA
returned home, her parents quarreled. Huddled in the bed she'd once shared with her sister, Aemilia couldn't have closed her ears to their shouting if she had tried.

“You promised him the virginals?” Papa's voice rang out in disbelief. “You had no right. That's for Aemilia.”

“Aemilia's just a child. Angela's a married woman. She and Master Holland need—”

“He's already gone through her dowry, the wastrel. I should have forbidden the match.”

“I promised him!” Mother was weeping.

Papa was silent. Aemilia could picture his face—he was too outraged to even speak.

“Can we not pawn anything?” Mother was like a dog with her teeth in meat. She would not give it up. “Surely we can give them something.”

“There's nearly nothing left of our savings as it is! Would you let him bankrupt us? Let him ruin us? You think I will live forever and always be here to provide?”

Hearing her father's voice break, Aemilia began to sob. Her heart beat in terror of a world that didn't have Papa in it.

T
HE NEXT MORNING
M
ASTER
Holland appeared at their door, hoping perhaps to find Mother alone again. Instead Papa confronted him with a face like thunder.

“Do you think to wheedle more money from my wife?” he demanded. “I see she already gave you her housekeeping money.”

Holland's mouth twisted in a sour smile. Out from behind him stepped Angela, as though emerging from her husband's shadow. She stood trembling on the threshold.

Aemilia threw herself at Angela, burying her head in her skirts. Through the worn fabric, she could feel her sister's bony hips. Angela had grown so thin, as though she hadn't eaten a morsel since her wedding feast three weeks ago. Had her sister been ill? Angela didn't hug her back but only stood there, stiff as a fence post.

“
Cara mia.
” Papa embraced her, tears in his eyes.

But Angela's eyes were empty.
This is no longer my sister,
Aemilia thought. Mother came barreling out, exclaiming how thin and pitiful Angela looked.

Aemilia scowled at Master Holland, who looked perfectly healthy and well fed while her sister was as gaunt as a starveling. No one could have mistaken her for a gentleman's wife. The only thing of quality to be found on her person was the golden ring her husband had given her, now sliding loose on her finger. Had Master Holland starved her on purpose? Aemilia's spine crawled when she remembered Lord Hunsdon telling her that his merlin falcon ate only at his command. Yet it was not Lord Hunsdon who had turned her sister into a skeleton, but her lawful husband.
Papa was wrong. Angela was wrong. She would have been happier with Lord Hunsdon. He would have made her a lady.
Aemilia imagined her mother would beat her silly if she even guessed she was thinking such thoughts.

“Let's get you some food, love.” Mother held Angela as though she'd never let her go. “There's fresh baked bread. And pottage on the hob. If I'd known you were coming, I would have made you lamb-and-fennel pie.”

Angela only wriggled out of her grasp and delivered her line as though she were a player at the Theater in Shoreditch.

“Poor Francis is having a dreadful time with his creditors. Papa, could you lend us anything at all?”

Papa sagged. “If your husband cannot provide, you must come back home, Angelina. We'll look after you. We always have.”

“Yes!” Aemilia cried, hugging her again.

Her sister, she hoped, would sleep in their old bed again. Angela would tell her stories at night and everything would be as it was before, the house ringing with her madrigals.

“Go with your mother into the kitchen,” Papa told Angela. “Let her feed you before you blow away.”

Angela only stood there looking lost and miserable, as though she could no longer take a step on her own without her husband's permission.
What had he done to her?
Aemilia glared at Master Holland with pure hatred. But he ignored her the way he would a yapping dog.

“It's my grave misfortune,” the man drawled, “that my creditors are as mean as Jews.”

Master Holland cast a pointed stare at Papa, who went as pale as wax. Panic rose inside Aemilia's chest—why did her brother-in-law's words leave Papa so stricken?

“I've heard dark rumors indeed,” said Holland, “of a secret cabal of Jews in the Liberty of Norton Folgate who convene by night in secret underground chambers.”

Her heart quickened. So this was Papa's secret, what he hid from her, although Mother and Angela knew. Her father and his brothers were Jews, like the patriarchs in the Old Testament.

“What might our Queen do,” Holland went on, “if she knew there were such ungodly men in her midst?”

Papa's face hardened into stone. “Get out of my house.”

Aemilia trembled as her father's anger and helplessness ripped through her. If Holland betrayed him, Papa could be imprisoned or even slain. How had her brother-in-law, of all people, uncovered Papa's secret? He could have only learned this from Angela. Aemilia gaped at her sister, who looked straight ahead with blank eyes.

“Angelina,” Papa said, his face softening again. “This is your home. You are welcome here always. But not that man.”

Holland stood his ground, revealing his teeth with an icy smile. “Fine words coming from a Jew dog who loves his gold more than his daughter. But then Angela's not your daughter, is she? I wouldn't have sullied myself with her if she was.”