Dark Aemilia (8 page)

God still being in his Heaven, though mightily indifferent to me, the morning before my wedding day I take myself off to the quiet of the abbey. I sit down on the rush-strewn flags and pray.

‘When the wicked man turneth away from his wickedness that he hath committed, and doeth that which is lawful and right, he shall save his soul… I acknowledge my transgressions and my sins…’

‘Aemilia!’

I open my eyes. My pregnant state makes my mind slow, my view of the world outside my body more hazy with each passing day. Is God speaking to me? But no, it is a white-faced Will. His eyes are set in dark rings; he is hatless and his hair is pushed behind his ears as if had just risen from bed.

‘We must speak – come!’

He drags me down the damp passage to the high-walled abbey garden. At the far side of the quadrangle, an old servant is sweeping up dead leaves.

I stare at Will, shocked and yet for all my woe relieved to have him near.

‘Is it true?’ he asks. ‘They say you’re pregnant!’

I cover my face with my hands and turn away.

He pulls me round and prises my hands away. I am forced to look at him, and see that his eyes are wet with tears.

‘Are you having a child?’

I can’t reply.

‘And are you marrying… Alfonso Lanyer?’ He seems barely able to speak the name.

I look down at the muddy ground, licking the salt tears from my lips. Last night was stormy, and a fat worm is slithering in a puddle. Avoiding his gaze, I say, ‘I don’t expect you to understand.’

‘Oh, Aemilia! Look at me!’ He seizes hold of me and shakes me, gently. I don’t want to look at him, but I am forced to. His gaze seems blacker and darker than it has ever been, as if it were a reflection of my own eyes. ‘Have pity! I’ve never loved, never known what it was to love, never known such pain and wonder as I have known since I met you.’

I can’t help myself. ‘My love,’ I say. ‘My heart will break!’ I take his face between my hands and kiss his eyes, his cheeks, his lips. We embrace as tenderly as we had on that strange and silent night at Titchfield. It seems as though a thousand years have passed since that sweet time.

He draws back and tucks a strand of my hair inside my bonnet. ‘Answer me one question.’

I smile up at him, full of sorrow. ‘I will answer it, I promise.’

‘Are you having a child?’

I swallow bile. ‘Yes.’

‘Then – come with me! Be my mistress, be mine…’

‘It isn’t yours.’

His face hardens and his arms drop to his sides. We stare at each other.

‘How do you know?’

It is all I can do to remain standing. I put my arm out and steady myself against the cold stone wall. ‘I lay with Hunsdon, just as I lay with you.’

He winces and turns his back. For a moment I think he will walk away, but then he says, ‘As you did for years before you met me, and nothing came of it.’ There is no tenderness now; each word is hard and separate.

I go over to him, and turn him around to face me. I see, with a wrench of grief, that his face is contorted with pain. I want to embrace him, hold him close, and pretend that things could be as they were before. But I can do nothing. ‘You can’t protect me,’ I whisper.

‘He’s marrying you off!’ says Will, with a great sob. ‘To a brainless knave who cheats at dice! A fine way to “protect” you! Are you grateful to him for that? Are you really such a whore as to be bought so cheap?’

‘He has given me a dowry, and a house. He has bought me a place in the world. I will be respectable. With you, I would have nothing. Don’t you see? We had a room, nowhere else. We were like conspirators, not man and wife.’

Now he weeps openly, shuddering sobs that seems to tear out of him. ‘You would have everything. Everything! What is there, that is greater than our love? What in this whole world? Tell me! Tell me!’

My tears flow too, but all this weeping makes me angry. ‘A lord may have a wife and keep a mistress,’ I cry. The old man has stopped sweeping and is staring over at us. I lower my voice, but speak with desperate fury. ‘A playwright can barely keep himself! Half of your noble profession are in the debtors’ prison! I’m not living with my child, as a poet’s whore, in some filthy ale-house! Or a back-street alley, like a pauper – how can you even ask me to think of such a thing?’

Will breathes deeply and closes his eyes, as if searching for the incantation that will change my mind and make me his. ‘I can ask you because I love you. I can ask you because, without you, my life is a just a shabby, ceaseless repetition, and I don’t believe there are two other people, in this whole great City, who have loved as we have loved. I can ask you because you are the woman I will always need, and look for, and revere. That is why I can ask you. And you, you speak of money! My God, has the Court so corrupted you? Is that all you can conceive of: the bald, material world?’

I shake my head. ‘You cannot keep me, Will. You are being a fool.’

‘I have my work to keep us.’

‘Oh, yes! Play-making, and poetry! You’re one step up from vagrancy.’

There is silence again. I think,
I cannot go on with this. I cannot keep pretending that I am strong enough to live without you
.

Will pulls his cloak around him, as if in preparation for departure. ‘I thought you wanted to be a poet yourself? How can you speak of what I do with such contempt?’

‘It’s all words. Words, words, words. What are they? Flimsy, floating, fancy things, not real. You make it sound as if I expect a suite of rooms at Whitehall – that’s not fair! But I do need a house, and bowls, and spoons, and chattels. And food and clothing and a safe haven from the streets. I’ve traded in my virtue, and now I’m trading in my love, so I can look after my child. If Hunsdon is marrying me off – so be it.’

He stares down at me, breathing hard. ‘You’ll bed that worm Alfonso, instead of lying with me? You’ll let him have you, night after night? You’ll do with him all those sublime and secret things that you have done with me?’

‘You are not free! Will you keep the baby in a box of feathered hats? Shall it crawl across the stage-boards before it speaks? Will you feed this babe before you feed the ones that are already born, at Stratford? In wedlock? Leave me be! Stop torturing me with what you call love, and which is a sort of twisted lust!’

He stares at me as if I were at the bottom of an abyss. His face is as white as a winding sheet. Even his lips are pale. ‘How can you say that? You know I love you.’

I close my eyes. ‘I know it.’

‘And you love me.’

He comes back and holds me in his arms and I hide my face in his neck. After a moment, I look up at him and say, ‘I do love you. Will. If love alone could keep us, we would never part.’

‘Then…’ He hardens his grip around me, but I pull away.

‘But love never kept anyone,’ I cry. ‘Did it? And we are joined to others. And we must survive and so must they. I am to marry Lanyer, and he will be my lord, and I will be his wife and his word will be my law. I will be tamed, like poor Kate in your play. See – how wise and prescient you were!’

‘It’s not possible. My darling, darling Aemilia. It cannot be.’

‘It is the only way.’

And then, not able to bear another word of this, I turn and run across the garden. Will yells after me, ‘It is not finished! I will not let you go! Hear me, Aemilia! We are not done!’

I look over my shoulder, my hands pressed to my mouth. Will has disappeared. The old man is staring after me, his broom suspended in mid-air.

For the first few weeks of my union with Alfonso, I try to pretend that he does not exist, and he pleases me by keeping away. I spend my days writing, sitting in the solar and looking down at the street, watching my belly grow. I soon look like a plum pudding.

A letter arrives for me one day. To my surprise, it is from Hunsdon. I tear it open, wondering if he might have changed his mind. Perhaps he wants me to be his mistress again. Perhaps Lady Anne has driven him mad with boredom. But no. It is a short note.

Burghley House is on the north side of the Strand. It is a handsome brick building, three storeys high, built around two
courtyards. I am shown into the library, which looks out over the gardens and the fields of Covent Garden which lie beyond. I can see two youths playing tennis on a paved court, and a servant working in the orchard. As I watch the young men, I reflect that I have about as much power as the leather ball that bounces back and forth between them.

It surprises me that Burghley has agreed to see me: he is known to be uxorious and upstanding, and has never approved of me. ‘Utilitarian’, Hunsdon said; could it be that Burghley has some use for me? I turn away from the window and look around me. The panelling is carved and painted, the floors newly strewn with sweet-smelling rushes and the air is hushed, as if in mute respect for all the learning in the room. It seems to me that Burghley owns quite as many books as his monarch.

‘I see you are one who appreciates the beauty of learning.’ The voice is silk-smooth, like the pages of a book. I look up, and my heart lurches. Standing in the doorway is not the austere, white-bearded Burghley but Henry Wriothesley, fair hair curled, dressed in peacock blue. He is regarding me with a knowing
half-smile
. He is one of Burghley’s circle, but even so the sight of him is an unpleasant shock.

‘Mistress Lanyer, how you have blossomed! Really… there is so much more of you as a Lanyer than there was when you were a mere Bassano!’

‘I am here to see Lord Burghley, your lordship,’ I say, coldly. ‘Is he here?’

‘Nooo, sadly. No. He told me to inform you that he has been called away on urgent business. But I bethought me…’ He comes closer, smiling at his own affected speech. ‘I bethought me – why waste this lovely visitor? Given that we have already met, and the lovely visitor is so… lovely.’

He walks around me, daintily, first this way and then that, and I smell the rich scent of his clothes. He smiles at my fattened face and sprouting breasts, seeming well pleased. He picks a
book up from the table beside me. It is
The Rape of Lucrece
, by a Mr W.S.

‘Dear Will,’ he says, flipping it open. ‘I’ve commissioned him to write a new comedy. Did you know?’

‘No, sir, I did not. I am not… closely acquainted with Mr Shakespeare.’

He raises his fine brows. ‘Really? You surprise me.’

‘I have come to speak of my own work, sir.’

But he doesn’t seem to hear me. ‘
A Comedy of Errors
– a noble title, don’t you think? He is writing it at this very moment.’

‘If I were to have a patron, sir, I might work upon my poems and make them… more than they are now.’

‘Quill scratching fast across the page,’ says the earl, apparently talking to himself. He looks up and smirks. ‘Very well, you pretty pregnant thing, let’s hear this verse of yours.’

‘I was going to talk about my verses with Burghley. Your lordship.’

‘So he told me. But I am a greater patron of the arts than he! You see – how fortuitous it is that I am here, instead of him! The stars are smiling on you.’

‘I am not sure that I share your favourable opinion. Can you tell Lord Burghley that I would be happy to see him on another occasion?’

He smiles, shaking his head. ‘He will not do it, my bloated chuck. It’s not like you to be obtuse. Look at you! Hunsdon has cast you off, and you’re the size of a cow-shed.’

‘Then I must go.’

‘Then you won’t have a patron, will you? You will go back into the… outer darkness, whence you came. I hear he built a pretty house for you, which would fit into this library ten times over.’

He comes closer to me, smiling more sweetly than before. ‘Forgive me. Forgive me. I would like to hear your verse. I see no reason why a lady like yourself – one well-known for her
intelligence and learning – should not be a writer as good as any man!’

‘You surprise me, sir!’

‘I am young, mistress. I am part of the modern age. You are ill-served, and misunderstood.’

‘That’s true enough!’

‘You see? I understand you. I know my reputation may be off-putting, but lay your prejudice aside. Let me hear your verses. Please.’ He takes my hand, still smiling. ‘Come and sit with me, and read your verse and I will see… what I can do.’

He leads me to the corner of the library and gestures towards a low bed heaped with velvet cushions. I pull my hand away.

‘Isn’t there somewhere else… more public?’

‘Come, you’re not afraid of me? A woman of your bearing? It is I who should be afraid! Look at you! God’s blood. Almost too beautiful.’ He pours out two glasses of wine and hands one to me. ‘Almost. But not quite.’

I can hear two voices. But which is the angel, and which the devil?
‘Run! Flee! Escape!
’ says one. ‘
Stay! This could be your
salvation! Prove yourself!
’ says the other. He is smiling, smiling. I can feel the baby moving inside me. I wonder if, like me, it is afraid.

When I realise that I am scared of him, I force myself to step forward and take the glass, and sip it. For I am afraid of no one, and nothing, except Death itself. I will take this chance, and see where it leads. While I read, Wriothesley at first contents himself with listening ‘raptly’, which is to say, he acts out the role of one who listens with exaggerated astonishment and delight. His mock entrancement has the effect of making the shortcomings of my verse more obvious to me, and I vow that, if nothing else, I will make my poems better in future, even if I die in the attempt. And I also notice, as I read the stumbling, bumbling words, that his lordship is edging ever closer to me on the divan, so that, when I come to the end of the third stanza of the third poem, his
breath is on my neck. When I finish, there is silence for a moment, and then he takes my face between his hands and twists it round so he can scrutinise it. Then he says abruptly, ‘Your eyes are black, aren’t they? Truly black. I have never seen such a thing.’

I stand up.

‘The Bassanos are Venetian,’ I say. ‘My father was a Marrano, some say from Africa.’

He stretches out on the bed, with his head propped on his elbows. ‘You know, I have had my eye on you since the night we met,’ says he.

‘Have you?’

‘Do you want to know what I think?’ he asks.

I say nothing.

‘You are
greedy
. Greedy for pleasure, my glorious hussy. Greedy for men.’

‘No!’

‘Or should I say – for
poets
?’

I stare, and he gets up and winds his arm around my waist. ‘Standing by Will Shakespeare’s stairway, in a dry nightgown with a wet cunt. Oh, don’t look at me like that, sweet lady. I could smell it from where I stood.’ He bends down, as he did that night, but this time his hand creeps underneath my skirts and I feel his silky fingers stroke the inside of my leg. ‘He had you good and plenty, didn’t he? Am I not right? I’ll never forget the look upon your face. He fucked you all the way to Heaven, that gentle poet. Pumping like Beelzebub, I’ll wager.’ Now his hand is creeping up the soft skin of my thigh. ‘Luckiest of poets.’

With a sudden motion Wriothesley forces me down, and I am lying on my back upon the low bed. I feel his weight upon me. He is heavier than he looks, and I scream out. ‘My lord! My baby – be careful with my baby!’

‘Ah, the poet’s bastard, is it, lodged inside you?’ He begins to laugh – a boy’s laugh, hysterical and shrill. With a sudden force of effort I push him away and he falls to the ground, still laughing.
He stands up and shakes out his sleeves. ‘Listen. I know you have been lying with William. I am a witness to it. If you want me to keep this information private – which I suspect you do – then I am determined to extract a fair price from you. If you wish to keep yourself from me – and that is entirely your decision – then I will let Lord Hunsdon know that his dowry missed its mark, and that he may as well have gone down to the Liberties and paid for any shilling strumpet to live like a merchant’s wife.’

‘No!’ I see myself, clear and sharp. A street-walker, a doxy, a common whore. I see my baby, a harlot’s brat, shrivelling in my arms.

He whispers, ‘But if you want to keep your little house – with your little monkey in it – then I suggest that you sin a little and let me lie beside you.’

‘I would rather die, sir. Look upon me! Have pity on my state.’ The room is shifting; sweat is rolling down my neck into my gown. What can I do? What can I say?

‘Think carefully, Aemilia. They say you are a woman possessed of a fine mind. Well, use it.’

Before I can speak, he has pulled me down so that I sprawl on top of him. ‘No, sir!’ I scream. ‘No, I will not do it…’

He rips my skirts out of the way and, despite the swollen mound of my belly, he forces himself into me. His cock is a
fire-poker
and he is sucking at my sore dugs and then my senses are black.

When I look up, damp and trembling, Will is standing at the doorway, holding a book in his hand. His eyes are fixed on me with such an expression of disbelieving horror that I cannot speak, nor even think, but only stare back at him, my thighs spread and my soiled shift clutched between my fingers.

Wriothesley has his eyes closed. ‘Oh, foul Jezebel,’ he says. ‘There is not a whore in London who is a better fuck. Come, I demand you kiss me.’ He puckers up and points to his full red lips.

I look at Will. His face is pale and thinner than when last I saw him, with shadows beneath his cheekbones, and his eyes are black-rimmed from stage-paint that has not been properly wiped off, and his beard is new-trimmed and his razor must have nipped his skin, for there is a stab of scarlet on his left cheek. He is speechless; he is stone.

Wriothesley opens his eyes and looks at Will calmly. ‘Forgive us, dear Will,’ he says. ‘Such scenes as this are hardly to be expected in a library. Patrons should be more sedate than this. I have my… position to consider.’ He smirks up at me.

I pull myself up, and his lordship’s limp cock flops down on to his white stomach. Will is gone. Liquid trickles down my leg. I pull down my skirts, pick up my slippers and run after him, tripping over my dress and sobbing without tears.

The library opens on to a wide landing. Everything gleams and glitters. I can’t tell what is what, nor recall the names for things. Where is Will? Which way did he go? There is a stairway, sweeping downwards. He is not there. I run the other way, down a long gallery with sunlight sparkling through leaded windows. There is bright colour – Turkey carpet colour; there are high paintings of men with cruel faces. All are Wriothesley, sneering down. There is a doorway, between two carved chairs. There is Will, framed inside it, with his back to me, still as a statue.

I go through the door and close it behind me. We are standing in a small chamber, stark and plain. There is a table and a chair, and a riot of paper. A window looks out across a stableyard.

‘Sit,’ he says, without turning to face me.

‘I’d rather stand,’ I say, but then sink down on to the chair. My sight is wraithed with black vapour, like smithy-smoke. Will stares out of the window.

‘Will …’ I begin. ‘This… thing. The thing you saw…’

He turns at last, but remains silent. His eyes are cast down.

‘My love,’ I say. ‘My dearest…’

He will not look at me.

‘I implore you, sir!’ I hold out my hand. ‘Truly, I implore you… Listen to me!’

At last, he looks at me, arms rigid by his sides. ‘Listen to you?’ he says. His voice is hoarse. ‘Listen to you? What can you
say
?’

‘That I was… I was tricked…’

‘How did he trick you? Did he shape-shift, so he looked like me? Did he wizard himself inside you, with the magic of his mighty phallus?’ He stares at me. ‘Well? Did he?’

This time I am the one who is silent. I hang my head.

‘I have seen Hell. I have seen a Beast with two backs. I have seen everything I loved and honoured made vile and evil. That is the thing that I have seen.’

‘Listen, I –’

‘There are no words, Aemilia. There is no “listen”, and then some sentences that you can conjure which I will take into my mind, so we can be as we were. This is Death. This is the end of what I loved, and what I thought I knew, and what made my life bearable, for all its pain and sorrow. This fine woman, this great spirit, this mind beyond compare – a rutting strumpet!’

‘I was reading him my poems and –’

‘Oh, Christ Jesu!’ He turns and throws open the window, as if the room is suffocating him. ‘Your wretched poems! They are no good, my sweet. They are just doggerel, my lovely one. You may be the equal of all comers in the areas of algebra and astronomy and what you will, but let me tell you, a poet is not a learned man who pens out his learned thoughts in comfort and complacency! A poet is a madman, who knows nothing, and makes a world of his insanity. And you, my lady, may be a scholar and you are certainly a whore, but you will never be a poet.’

I can’t weep. I can’t think. I try to say,
He blackmailed me, he was going to tell Hunsdon all about you
– but I cannot see how to say this without making him even angrier, if that is possible. All I can think of is that I must go, away, and escape his burning eyes, and the hatred and contempt in his voice. I stand up.