The Dark Lady's Mask

by Mary Sharratt

  But Harry was already spinning away from his friend. For a moment, he hovered over Aemilia’s shoulder. As she twisted on her seat to face him, he tossed a pouch into her lap.

  “I give you leave to depart, Aemilia-Emilio. As charming as your services are, we shall not require them anymore this night.”

  While she weighed the bag of gold coins in her hand, Southampton sauntered to the far end of the room where, through the great double doors, an august company of gentlemen streamed in, arrayed like princes in their linens and silk. Soon they engulfed the young Earl.

  “A midnight picnic on Midsummer’s Eve! How enchanting, Southampton!”

  Aemilia was about to dart from the room without further ceremony when she noticed that the poet stood as if turned to stone. How blithely his noble lord had deserted him. The pages of Venus and Adonis lay scattered across a table, as if those exquisite verses were of no greater worth than a soiled napkin. Aemilia went to gather them up when she heard the racket of less genteel men joining the fray at the far side of the room. Strident, common voices shouted and jibed.

  “Do I spy Master Shakescene, the upstart crow?” a voice boomed. “What’s he doing here? A charity case, my lord? That wretch owes me money!”

  The poet seemed to jump out of his skin. As if in a blind panic, he bolted to the nearest exit—an open window. The only visible doors were on the opposite end of the room, now blocked by the intruders. Aemilia watched in horror as the poet lifted his leg over the sill. It was at least a twelve-foot drop into the garden. Dashing over, she seized his arm.

  “Have you gone mad?” she hissed.

  “Unhand me, woman!” he cried, his face dark red as he struggled to shake himself free.

  “Never! A man of your years has no business leaping out of windows.”

  “A man of my years?”

  They both jerked their heads at the sound of Harry’s company advancing across the room like an invading army. Before the poet could make one final attempt to defenestrate himself, she whispered fiercely in his ear, “Come, make haste. I’ll show you out the back.”

  Dragging him into a curtained alcove, she found the hidden door used by the servants. Gripping his hand, she led him down a warren of darkened passages and stairways. The first thing she learned in any house, great or humble, was how to escape it.

  “Never fear,” she told the poet. “I, too, would not wish to stay to see Southampton entertain his tribe of buffoons.”

  She found her way to the back corridor nearest the stables where she had left her riding cloak and her rapier and sword. The way the young Earl had toyed with them both, she fumed, using them for his amusement then turning his back on them when he tired of his little game. A poet from the provinces who had never learned Greek. A fallen woman who knew Greek and dressed as a young man. Perhaps the two of them were interchangeable as far as Harry was concerned, novelties for his curiosity cabinet, just like the miniature of the courtesan in the codpiece. You should try her some time. From the far end of the house, she could hear the men’s laughter and hooting.

  The poet wrenched his hand from her grasp. “Where’s the door? I must away!”

  He looked as though someone had rammed a knife into his innards. It was then she realized that his shame cut even deeper than hers. Unlike her, the poet truly loved Southampton. He had offered up his body and soul to that fickle boy. The words of his sonnet ripped through her memory. Being your slave, what should I do but tend upon the hours and times of your desire? Even a slave could take only so much.

  Leading him down the passage, she opened a door into the blooming night garden. Something made her stand in his path, blocking his way. She could not stop herself from touching his face, wet with tears.

  “You needn’t be jealous on my account,” she told him. “I’ve never so much as kissed the boy. And you mustn’t take him too seriously. Aristocrats such as he might dally with the likes of you and me, but eventually they tire of us and cast us aside.”

  Her words only seemed to drive the poet’s despair to the breaking point. Pushing past her, he fled into the garden. She called out to him, but he was gone. Only her voice remained, echoing in the midsummer night.

  RIDING BACK TO WESTMINSTER, Aemilia consoled herself that this night’s labors had not been in vain. Southampton’s purse of gold coins hung heavy inside her doublet. These, her own earnings, she would hide from Alfonse’s grasp. Yet she desperately needed to find a more reliable means of sustenance than depending on the likes of Harry.

  The poet lingered in her mind. His look of utter heartbreak, how he’d reeled away when she had touched his tears. His verses had formed such an intricate counterpoint to her music, as though his art seamlessly interlocked with hers. Fancy the chance of them meeting twice on the same day—what if this was preordained in their very stars? Slowly an idea began to form inside her head. Might not the pair of them prove more formidable together than either of them on their own—his poetry combined with her education and courtly connections? Might they even become collaborators of sorts? But what man would ever agree to work with a woman, even one as learned as she? Their paths might never cross again.

  Tucked inside her shirt, the precious pages of Venus and Adonis burned against her bound breasts. She had tried to return his poem to him, but he’d run away from her, never looking back. The night had swallowed him whole.

  13

  HE MISTRESS HAS BEEN creeping about in the night again,” Winifred told her sisters.

  The kitchen was redolent with elderflower, the scent of high summer. Winifred and Prudence pounded the filmy white blooms in crocks to make elderflower wine while Tabitha sat on a stool and nursed Enrico.

  “Lucky the master hasn’t returned from Greenwich yet.” Tabitha wrapped her arms protectively around the baby. “What if he knew?”

  Winifred snorted. “She thinks we don’t know.”

  The three sisters gazed at the ceiling above which their mistress slept, even as the bells of Saint Margaret rang the hour of ten o’clock. From the kitchen beams hung the dried herbs Prudence had gathered. Pru knew each plant’s uses and properties, in which phase of the moon to harvest it, and which planet ruled it. Winifred and Tabitha bowed to Pru’s superior wisdom in such matters.

  The Weir sisters hailed from deepest Essex, though they’d heard it said that their surname was Scottish and that some paternal ancestor must have wandered down from the land north of the Tweed. Folk were often surprised to discover they were sisters, for they didn’t bear a strong resemblance to one another. Prudence was as thin as a broomstick while Winifred was as big as a haystack. Tabitha was as pretty as the Queen of May.

  Tabby’s beauty had not always been a boon. Her former master in Braintree had forced his way into her bed one night. Seven months later he threw her out without a farthing because her pregnant belly had grown too big to hide. From that moment onward, the Weir sisters had sworn a pact. Never again would they be separated. Each prospective employer must hire all three of them. Nothing good could come from separating sisters.

  There was no going back to Essex. The sisters’ reputations had grown too notorious. Not only was Tabitha disgraced, but Prudence was the subject of the most chilling speculations. She’d always been different from the rest, born with the caul. Even as a tot she’d seen things invisible to others. Tongues really started to wag when Tabitha’s former master suffered a stroke that left him crippled and impotent, forever ending his days of raping young girls. Folk in Essex said that whoever meddled with the Weir sisters came to ruin.

  After a neighbor and her two daughters were hanged for witchcraft, the Weir sisters knew it was time to flee. With pregnant Tabby in tow, they walked all the way to London. Tabitha’s baby had been stillborn, drowning her heart in grief. But then Mistress Aemilia had come to their rescue, hiring Tabby as her wet nurse and giving her a new baby to love. And who would accuse Prudence of witchcraft here in the safe haven of Westminster? Yet their security seemed tenuous at
best. If their good mistress was to suffer grave misfortune, they might be out on the street.

  “I’m afraid for the mistress, I am.” Winifred’s powerful arms heaved as she pounded the elderflowers into a thick perfumed paste. “What will happen when the master discovers she rides forth by night? She can’t keep her secret forever.”

  “Dressed as a man!” Tabitha lowered her voice. “I found the key to the coffer where she hides her men’s clothes. Her sword and rapier, too.”

  “She could be arrested,” said Winifred.

  Everyone knew that cross-dressing was a crime against God and the Queen. Winifred took out her temper on the elderflowers. The kitchen table quaked under the might of her thrashing arms. Even the herbs hanging from the beams trembled.

  “She’s more to fear from the master than the law,” said Tabitha. “Isn’t that right, Pru?”

  Tabby and Winifred both looked at Prudence. The eldest Weir sister had yet to voice her opinion.

  “Marry, the master’s bad tempered, but it’s all shouting and bluster,” said Pru. “Underneath it, he’s soft. He’s only young and he truly desires her. But he knows she despises him. So he pretends to hate her in turn.”

  The younger Weir sisters remained silent, digesting Prudence’s words.

  “He could learn how to make a woman happy,” Prudence said. “All he needs is a little encouragement. He’s eight months wed and never once bedded his wife.”

  Tabitha blushed. Winifred lowered her eyes to the crock of macerated elderflowers.

  “She was six months pregnant when she married him,” said Pru. “Then when Enrico was born, the midwife told her not to lie with her husband before the babe was six months old.”

  “If only she cared for him.” Tabitha held Enrico over her shoulder, stroking his back until he burped. “If only she could be soft with him, the way she’s soft with everyone else. Every beggar she passes in the street.”

  “If only he cherished her and acted a bit more kindly,” said Winifred. “If only he was a good provider and stopped wasting all her money.”

  “If, if, if,” Prudence said, rolling her eyes.

  “Love!” Winifred cried, her face turning pink. “It can turn the blackest heart to light.”

  “If only we could make them fall in love!” Tabitha locked eyes with Prudence.

  “I’ve heard of some who sell love philters,” said Winifred. “Like that piss-pot astrologer in Thames Street. I’ll wager he charges a fortune. Probably makes them from the bones of boiled cats.” She spoke contemptuously.

  “But using love charms is a crime,” Tabitha said, hugging Enrico against her bosom. “A hanging crime.” Her eyes were fearful and huge.

  “Sorcery,” Winifred muttered.

  The younger Weir sisters stared at Prudence, who went on pounding elderflowers as though her siblings weren’t even there. Flies buzzed in the kitchen. A cauldron of pottage bubbled in the hearth. A burning oak branch broke in two with a shower of golden sparks.

  Finally Prudence spoke. “Why, it’s no crime against God or the Queen to make elderflower wine. Or to pray over it. Prayer is no crime.”

  As she spoke, the house cat wound itself around her ankle and purred.

  “The old prayers.” Winifred met Prudence’s complicit gaze. “The country prayers.”

  “Why, it’s a blessed and holy thing,” said Tabitha, “to pray for a wedded couple’s happiness.”

  Winifred abruptly shook her head. “Making wine takes too long. At least six weeks to ferment. God’s teeth, they’ll probably murder each other by then.”

  “Unless we three were to pray over that flask on the sideboard.” Tabitha pointed to last year’s elderflower wine that they had brought with them from Essex. It was as yet unopened.

  The younger sisters turned to Prudence, who remained quiet for a long spell.

  “Sure, that flask might be prayed over,” said Pru. “It might be poured into a different bottle and placed on the table the next time the master and mistress dine together.” She lifted her face to the herbs hanging from the beams. “Why, we might even add a few more ingredients.”

  All three Weir sisters gazed at the locked drawer where Prudence hid the mandrake root.

  THREE DAYS LATER AEMILIA rode out at dawn. The rising sun flamed in the eastern sky, blinding her as she rode toward the parish of Saint Giles-without-Cripplegate outside London’s city walls. Ben Jonson, her maternal cousin, had told her Master Shakespeare lived in that district, which was famed for its low rents.

  “You’ll find him in Mistress Skinner’s boardinghouse behind the Whitecross Tavern,” Ben had informed her. “Though why you should wish to seek him out is beyond my ken. I always thought he was a long-winded, sheep-biting bumpkin.”

  Ben didn’t know, as Master Shakespeare did, that she rode out as a man. Not since her time at Grimsthorpe had she dared to appear as Emilio with the full light of day on her face. What if someone saw through her guise? Yet she would have risked even more making this journey as a woman. Saint Giles-without-Cripplegate was notorious for its thieves. Besides, she was calling on a strange man in his boardinghouse, something no respectable woman could do.

  What a hellhole this was. Every sight that caught her eye was ghastly. Even at this early hour, drunkards of both sexes relieved themselves in the street. Scrawny dogs devoured refuse. In the June heat, everything festered and stank. The odorous air wafting over the city walls seemed to bring its own taint of contagion, the specter of summer fluxes that killed infants in their cradles. Her heart rattled to think of such vapors infecting Enrico. People of any wealth evacuated London and Westminster in this sultry season.

  Her way took her past Cripplegate itself, which was hung with the beheaded, castrated, and eviscerated bodies of the Queen’s enemies. Anyone who entered London through its western gate must pass beneath these corpses rotting in the summer swelter, drawing swarms of flies and murders of crows. Bathsheba nearly bolted from the stench. Battling her own nausea, Aemilia trotted her briskly on, but Bathsheba stopped abruptly when a beggar on crutches lurched in their path, crying out in an open-palmed lament.

  “Have pity, kind sir!”

  When she took out her purse and gave him a penny, half a dozen other beggars crowded round while a mob of urchins closed in from behind. In her gentleman’s garb, Aemilia stood out to every pickpocket. Panic rose in her throat. How easily she could be dragged down from her horse, stripped of all possessions, including the false protection of her male garments. Gripping the reins in one hand, her sword in the other, she spurred on.

  Bathsheba’s hooves clattered on cobblestones when at last they entered the courtyard behind the Whitecross Tavern. The boardinghouse was a crooked, half-timbered structure with unglazed windows. What a sorry place for a poet to dwell. How could Southampton let his friend live like this—didn’t he pay him for his poetry? Or was the poet too proud and high-minded to accept Southampton’s money?

  A woman of middle years bustled out, her hands on her hips, her eyes raking Aemilia over. Aemilia froze in the saddle. Surely another woman would see straight through her masquerade, see how her hands, too small to be a man’s, trembled as she clutched the reins. But to her amazement, the woman’s eyes widened and she fairly simpered.

  “Good day to you, sir. Marry, I haven’t seen a gentleman as handsome as you in quite some time.”

  The woman curtsied low enough to expose her bosom. “Nell Skinner at your service, sir.” She smiled at Aemilia through her eyelashes.

  Never had Aemilia contemplated what might happen if an amorous woman took her male guise to be true. She reminded herself to keep her voice in its lowest registers. “Madam, I seek a Master Shakespeare. I understand he lodges with you.”

  Mistress Skinner twinkled, as though delighted to be called madam. “Indeed, he does, sir. Though what a fine gentleman like you would want with the likes of him, I don’t know. He’s a fortnight behind on his rent. But never you mind. Come, rest your leg
s in my parlor whilst I fetch him down.”

  At first Aemilia hesitated, reluctant to turn her back on Bathsheba in this district of thugs, but Mistress Skinner insisted, showing her into another courtyard with a gate that locked. A grubby boy offered Bathsheba moldy hay, which the mare disdained in favor of the green weeds shooting up from between the broken flagstones.

  In the boardinghouse parlor, Mistress Skinner made a huge fuss of seating Aemilia in her best carved chair.

  “I’ll just let Master Shakestaff know you’ve come to call. Any time you want to visit, sir, you are most welcome. My door is always open to you, sir, if you know my meaning!” The landlady spun around, giggling and lifting her skirts to flash her ankles and calves before she fluttered up the darkened stairwell.

  The strain of her act left Aemilia shaking, and her heart slammed to think of the proposal she was about to make to this man, this stranger. Fumbling through her satchel, she reached for her pipe and tobacco, a habit she seldom indulged in, but she needed the strong physick to settle her nerves. Lighting the pipe from the hearth embers, she took a long draw on the sweet Virginian herb before settling back into the chair, her booted legs a-splay, as though she truly were a carefree young rake.

  From up the stairwell, she heard Mistress Skinner banging on a door. “Wake up, you bugbear! There’s a gentleman to see you!”

  Moments later, Aemilia heard footsteps hurtling down the stairs. His face flushed, his hands clasped to his heart, the poet appeared before her.

  “Harry!” he cried, before stopping short at the sight of her.

  Enthroned in his landlady’s best chair, Aemilia puffed her pipe and decided to play her part with brio. To revel in her act, as though she had been born to wear these breeches and this white linen shirt.

  “Your good Mistress Skinner flirts with me in vain,” she said, affecting a mimicry of Southampton’s airy drawl. “For I must agree with our late, lamented Kit Marlowe. All they that love not tobacco and boys are fools.”