The Dark Lady's Mask

by Mary Sharratt

  “Brava!” Elizabeth cried.

  As the courtiers applauded, the Bassano sisters knelt before the Queen. Angela stretched out her slender arms to offer Elizabeth the Venetian lute that had cost Papa so dearly.

  THE FOLLOWING MORNING, JUST as Mother was preparing to return Angela’s borrowed finery, a messenger appeared at the door and asked for Papa.

  “Master Bassano, the Lord Hunsdon requests an audience with you and your step daughter.”

  Aemilia, peering through a window, shrieked and clapped her hands. A coach waited outside their door.

  Mother couldn’t get Angela dressed quickly enough.

  “I hope a lady will be present at the audience,” Mother said, as she sewed Angela’s braids into place. “Perhaps Lord Hunsdon’s sister, Catherine, for surely it is she who interviews prospective ladies-in-waiting.”

  Having nothing to wear, Mother could not accompany Angela. Instead, she sent Aemilia, since having a child present would mean that everything was as respectable as could be. Papa’s face shone in eagerness as they stepped into the coach and made their way once more to Westminster.

  THE COACH DELIVERED THEM not to Whitehall but to the Royal Mews. Aemilia wrinkled her nose at the stench of bird droppings, but the creatures themselves fascinated her. Some slumbered upon their roosts while others inspected her with eyes like shiny dark beads. She was attempting to squeeze her hand through the bars of a cage, eager to stroke a hawk’s soft speckled feathers, when Papa yanked her away.

  “Those are no doves,” he chided. “They’ll rip you to shreds. Look!”

  He pointed to the next cage where a particularly savage-looking bird tore at a hunk of raw meat with its talons and beak. Yet something about the bird’s ravenous devouring tugged at Aemilia.

  “He must be so hungry,” she said, her face as close to the cage as Papa would allow.

  “She, not he,” a voice said.

  They spun to face Lord Hunsdon. This day he did not appear in his velvet and gold braid but instead wore a leather doublet and high leather boots, every inch the Master of Hawks.

  “All the royal hunting falcons and hawks are female,” he informed Aemilia, speaking as though he were her schoolmaster and this was a lesson she must commit to her heart. “Amongst birds of prey, the female of the species is the more rapacious hunter. She’s larger than the male, her flight swifter and vision keener.” Aemilia turned to her father, whose eyes were fixed on the gentleman.

  “My Lord Hunsdon,” Papa said, bowing to him while Aemilia and Angela curtsied.

  “Master Bassano,” he said, “I cannot praise Angela highly enough. Truly, you have given her a most refined education. I must say the girl is well named.”

  Angela flushed dark pink as Lord Hunsdon bent over her hand.

  “To honor your talents and accomplishments, young mistress, I thought to give you a tour of the Royal Mews—if this is agreeable, of course.”

  Lord Hunsdon looked to Papa, who nodded his assent.

  “If you do make a career in court, you must be knowledgeable of such things,” Lord Hunsdon told Angela. “After all, the Queen is as fond of hunting and hawking as she is of madrigals, and she expects her ladies to follow suit.”

  Aemilia watched as her sister kept looking from Lord Hunsdon to Papa, her smile radiant enough to melt snow. Angela seemed to float on air when the Master of Hawks offered her his arm and showed her the peregrines, the white gyrfalcons, and the bustards with their long slender necks and crested heads. There was even a golden eagle.

  With Lord Hunsdon’s attention fixed on Angela and Papa’s fixed on Lord Hunsdon, Aemilia could gape at their host all she liked with no one to tell her off for it. Old King Henry’s bastard son!

  Lord Hunsdon offered Angela a leather gauntlet and then summoned a servant to bring a merlin falcon.

  “This fine creature is of a suitable size and weight for a young lady such as yourself,” the Master of Hawks told Angela, who stared in astonishment when the servant placed the merlin on her gloved fist.

  The Master of Hawks led them out to the courtyard, where he instructed her sister how to remove the hood and loose the jesses. On cue, the merlin flew to the far end of the yard where a servant stood with a hunk of bloody meat on a plank. Seizing her prey, the merlin flew back and alighted on Angela’s arm with a graceful flutter of wings. Angela stared speechlessly as the merlin dropped the meat into Lord Hunsdon’s open hand.

  “Is she not magnificent?” he asked, inviting them all to admire the merlin’s dark brown wings and her soft plumed breast stippled with cream and palest fawn.

  “She must be hungry,” Aemilia blurted. “Why doesn’t she eat?”

  Though she had spoken out of turn, Papa didn’t scold her for it.

  Lord Hunsdon seemed amused. “She only eats at my command.”

  At that, he gave word for the servant to deliver both the merlin and the meat back to her cage where she could feed in peace.

  “How do you like her?” Lord Hunsdon asked Angela, who averted her eyes from the sight of the bird ripping apart the bloody flesh.

  “Marry, I like her very much,” Angela said faintly.

  “She is yours,” Lord Hunsdon said. “She even has an Italian name—Mirabella.”

  Angela appeared utterly baffled and looked to Papa, who stepped forward, placing himself between his step daughter and the Master of Hawks.

  “My Lord Hunsdon, you honor us with your largess,” he said. “But I’m afraid Angela cannot accept such a gift. First, I would know what position she is to have in court that requires her to own such a bird. Has the Queen requested Angela’s service?”

  Lord Hunsdon spoke plainly. “Her Majesty has not. But under my patronage, Angela could rise far and so catch the Queen’s eye, insuring her position in the court.”

  Papa’s face hardened. “And what would my daughter do under your patronage?”

  Lord Hunsdon smiled. “I think you know exactly what I offer, Master Bassano. I’m quite infatuated with the girl and wish to share her company as long as it should be mutually pleasing to us both. Surely this would be advantageous to all parties. You and the girl shall both be richer for it. Your family shall gain influence at court.”

  Angela turned into a statue, her mouth a frozen O. Papa’s face went icy white as he clamped his lips together. Aemilia had never seen him more furious. She knew he was wrestling down his temper lest he unleash his fury and utter the words that would have him cast from his position and left without livelihood.

  “My Lord Hunsdon,” he said at last. “No daughter of mine shall be a courtesan. With your gracious leave, we shall now depart.”

  Shunning Lord Hunsdon’s coach, they boarded a wherry to Billingsgate then trudged all the way across London toward Norton Folgate. Aemilia’s head ached from trying to understand what she had witnessed. She had no clue what the word courtesan even meant.

  “He was too old to marry Angela,” she said, unable to keep her mouth shut, but that only made her sister cry.

  “Silenzio,” Papa said. “That man has a wife and twelve children already. It wasn’t marriage he proposed.” Then he spoke earnestly to Angela. “Henry Carey’s a Boleyn through and through. I should have expected no better. Those are the games the Boleyns have always played, whoring out their daughters to pave their way to glory. But those are not our ways.”

  Papa sighed and wrapped his arms around Aemilia and her sister as though he could shelter them forever. Cast his magical circle to keep them safe.

  3

  EMILIA SOON CAME TO learn that Angela was terrified of becoming a fallen woman. As Aemilia struggled to decipher what that meant, she imagined her sister plummeting down from the sky like a hailstone. If ever I fall, I pray Papa will catch me. Fly to me on his angel wings and raise me up again.

  A girl’s reputation was like a white linen sheet that must be kept immaculate, Angela informed her. If even the slightest smudge besmirched it, the best laundress in the world wouldn�
��t be able to get it completely clean again.

  Her sister’s dread of falling—falling all the way into hell—made her even more desperate for Francis Holland. She longed to become his wife as speedily as possible. Only then could she rest easy, she said, and be safe within her husband’s protection. Though Papa warned her to keep her head and not rush, Mother took her side and hastened things along by dropping bolder and bolder hints to Master Holland until, as if in answer to Mother’s and Angela’s prayers, he presented Aemilia’s sister with a golden ring.

  Mother rejoiced to see Angela so respectably matched. Master Holland had read law at Balliol in Oxford and bore the title Esquire. As a youngest son, he had received only a modest bequest from his family, yet he claimed great prospects. Many an enterprising man made his fortune buying and selling London property, so Master Holland told Papa. He had purchased several tenements in Billingsgate, and he swore to provide Angela with every comfort.

  Though Papa had never warmed to Master Holland, he could not put his finger on any convincing reason why Angela shouldn’t marry him, especially since she was so smitten by him. How could Papa stand between the girl and her true love, particularly after blaming himself for her humiliation with Lord Hunsdon? So he swallowed his doubts and gave his reluctant blessing.

  Mother saw to it that the couple wasted no time. The banns were spoken at church on three consecutive Sundays.

  ON A GLITTERING FEBRUARY morning, Angela’s wedding day dawned. With all the relations squeezed into church for the ceremony, Mother brimmed with joy, swearing that Angela was out of trouble’s way forever.

  “Now it’s only you I need worry about,” Mother whispered, stroking Aemilia’s curls. “But surely Master Holland and Angela will look after you.”

  Aemilia smiled, sharing her mother’s jubilance. Then she gazed over to Papa on the men’s side of the church. Of the entire crowd, he alone remained somber.

  Mother shook her head to see him so humorless. “Anyone would think he was watching a funeral.”

  IN THE BASSANO PARLOR, packed with guests, Aemilia joined the cheers as Angela and Master Holland sipped posset from the silver-plated bridal cup.

  All the Bassano kin had gathered and the Johnson relations on Mother’s side as well. While her uncles played galliards and corontos, Aemilia tried to amuse her four-year-old cousin Ben by leading him in a dance.

  Over the music and merriment, she heard Papa ask Mother, “Why did none of the groom’s family come to the wedding?”

  Mother dismissed his grumbling with a wave of her hand. “They live so far, over Bristol way. Surely they’ll send gifts.”

  Aemilia turned her gaze to Angela, laughing and spinning in her bridegroom’s arms.

  Mother tugged Aemilia close and whispered, “One day you will marry and be as happy as your sister.”

  THEIR HOME SEEMED so sad and silent without Angela’s singing and virginals playing. How Aemilia longed for her sister, yet they heard not a word from her in the days following her wedding, and visiting her was no simple thing, for now she lived on the other end of London. Mother said they must leave Angela and Master Holland in peace for a fortnight before calling on them, that Aemilia should be happy for her sister instead of pining for her.

  Angela’s wedding had cost Papa deep in the purse. Not only had he paid for the festivities, but he’d also presented Master Holland with her dowry of one hundred pounds. Since it was not his way to beg his brothers for a loan, he sought to earn extra money when he wasn’t at court.

  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.

  HER 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.

  THREE 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.