Shakespeare's Lady

by Alexa Schnee

  “Lady Lanier,” she spoke in a cool, even tone. “I have reason to believe that you have been engaging in manners unacceptable in my court. Is that correct?”

  She was much older than she had been the last time I had seen her so close. Her paper-thin skin clung to her bones. Her wrinkles had grown deeper.

  How could I answer? Even in her old age, she was an imposing force as she sat on her perch above me.

  I searched my mind before I replied.

  “It would depend on what Your Majesty deems unacceptable.”

  Her eyes softened. Not enough for the newcomer at court—just enough for the person who idolized her.

  “You have spirit. I have always admired that about you. I knew you weren’t some average musician’s daughter from the moment I inducted you into my court. But…,” she continued, “such behavior cannot be present among my ladies. You must tell me the truth, Lady Lanier. Are you Master William Shakespeare’s mistress?”

  This was the time. I would confess the truth, as I was sure William had done. Why else would he have had such a melancholy look about him when he saw me? It broke my heart to utter the next few words, for I was sure she wouldn’t be forgiving after I admitted my greatest sin.

  “I am, Your Grace.”

  “You are married, are you not?”

  “I am, Your Grace.”

  “Do you not know this is a sin against God and His church?”

  My mind raced with the thoughts of her with Robert Dudley and Essex. Her words felt like a hundred lies in a single phrase. Was my sin any different from hers? How was being in love with William any worse than what she had done with endless courtiers?

  “I do, Your Grace.”

  She stared at me. I lowered my eyes to the floor. I had never felt so ashamed in my life. I felt as though she were looking inside me.

  “And what do you think is an acceptable punishment for one who has ignored the laws of her queen and her God?”

  She was not asking my opinion. What would she want to hear? I could not be sure. I opened my mouth, but nothing came out. What would the proper penalty be? When I did not reply, she left the inquiry alone.

  She shook her head so delicately I could barely see it.

  “I’m afraid I must ask why you chose to deliberately disobey me.”

  My lip quivered before I could force out what I was about to say.

  “I fell in love.”

  The queen sighed. It was not a sound of acceptance or admiration. It was the sigh I gave if one of my dresses was so torn it wasn’t worth wearing again. It was how I knew my cause was lost. The queen had fallen in love too many times and had spent too long worrying about her lovers to care about mine.

  “How did a lady such as yourself become attracted to a simple playwright?”

  “I am as I always have been, a musician’s daughter.” It was all I could say.

  “That is not the truth,” Her Majesty corrected me. “You are a lady of my court. You had everything. ” She shifted in her throne. “Who do you think the world will remember more? A lady in my court, or a simple playwright?”

  “I would not know, Your Grace.”

  She nodded. “Very well. You are no longer allowed to see Master Shakespeare, and I must ask you to leave court immediately. I cannot have the other ladies looking to your example. Is that clear?”

  “Yes.”

  “And if I am to hear any more of your relationship with Master Shakespeare, I will have to take”—she coughed—“more drastic measures.”

  “Yes, Your Majesty.”

  She waved her hand, my signal to leave.

  It was the last time I would ever see Her Highness alive.

  I backed out of the hall. An immense sense of relief washed over me. It appeared the queen would not make Henry or Margaret suffer any harm. It was a weight off my shoulders, for I knew I would never have to worry about their safety again.

  And yet I could never see William again. There was a pain in my chest I had never felt before, and I felt tears come to my eyes. Now I knew why William had kissed me so. It was a good-bye. He had agreed to the queen’s conditions as I had. It was as if a piece of me had been ripped out. Everything I had once been was no longer.

  I rushed down through the passageways. My only hope was that William had done what he had said and waited for me. He would be in my chamber for the final time. The final kiss. The final goodbye. People stared. I didn’t care. My mind raced. Maybe he was still planning on our escape to Italy. My heart clung to this hope. I could hardly breathe. I hesitated when I reached the familiar door, my hand gripping the handle like a vise. The queen had said I could never see him again. I had disobeyed her wishes before. One last time would not matter. Her Majesty understood the significance of a good-bye. She must. She knew what love was like. It was the most unconscious, hurtful, terribly beautiful experience I had ever lived through. Love was nothing like it seemed in books and poetry. It did not feel the way others had promised. It was not at all the way I’d imagined it when I was young. Falling in love wasn’t the right thing to do. The things that mattered rarely were.

  I opened the door.

  He wasn’t there.

  My dilapidated desk looked as if it had been rifled through. The drawers were all pulled out of it, and papers were scattered on the floor. The drawer where I kept my story was wide open, and it was empty.

  He had taken it.

  The rest of the room was untouched except for one thing. I let go of the handle and closed the door behind me. I was abandoned. He had promised I wouldn’t be. He had left me without even saying good-bye.

  I walked over to the bed as stiff as a corpse. I picked up the rose he had left and let my eyes rest on the sheet of paper he had placed on the bed.

  And I read.

  Emilia,

  I cannot compare you to a summer’s day, for you are far more warm and temperate. You may think when you enter this room and see that I am gone that I do not care or love you. You would be very wrong indeed. It may appear that I have left you, but you will never leave me.

  You were right. The queen will have nothing of us being together, and I fear things other than times apart. You are as much a part of me as these very words, and you are the reason to write them down, because you have become my passion. You are my inspiration.

  I promise you will know of this truth.

  William

  PART THREE

  O, know, sweet love, I always write of you,

  And you and love are still my argument;

  So all my best is dressing old words new,

  Spending again what is already spent:

  For as the sun is daily new and old,

  So is my love still telling what is told.

  —Sonnet LXXVI

  ENGLAND, 1616

  DURING THE REIGN OF KING JAMES I

  LONDON

  I KNELT BEFORE THE tiny memorial stone. I had visited this spot nearly every day for the last seventeen years, faithfully placing flowers and saying prayers. As usual, the words etched in the stone reminded me of him. But then, everything reminded me of him.

  She was his child. From the time she was born, there was no doubt. She had his small smile and his enchanting eyes. She was beautiful, as was he. I had named her Odillya, a name similar to his character in Hamlet. She was a weak child to begin with, but I’d nursed her as best I could, hoping I would always have her as my most precious reminder.

  The iron gate surrounding the perimeter of the cemetery was rusted now, the paths overgrown with stubborn plants. White stones dotted the grass like scattered doves on a tree. Wings sprouted from stone angels, while words beneath them bespoke names no one had ever heard of.

  After the queen banished me from her court, I went to live with Margaret in Cumberland. I could not face Alfonso. Not with my shame known throughout all England and a growing child in my belly. He would know it wasn’t his.

  I wrote. There was nothing else for me to do. I would sit dow
n with a new notebook over my bulging stomach and a pen and write. I wrote of Margaret’s home in Cumberland, but mostly I wrote my penance.

  I was wiser than I had ever been. Heartbreak had made me stronger, and I knew that I would never make such a mistake again. I wrote poetry in exchange for my forgiveness, to ease my shame, but I wondered if I was ever truly forgiven.

  I wanted to publish this work. It would take me thirteen years to finish.

  Odillya died at ten months, and everything I had from William Shakespeare was gone. I wrote to Alfonso that day, asking him to accept me back so I could come home. So I could see my son. It was a month before I heard from him, but he accepted. Our relationship was strained for some time. He did not speak to me unless he needed to, and I slept on the hard, wooden floor for a while before I was offered a place in his bed again. But in a way, it was as if nothing had ever changed. Alfonso was still light and dark, but now I had learned I was too.

  He and William never spoke again. Their friendship had been lost when we were banished from court. Alfonso never mentioned him again. It was as if William Shakespeare had not existed. I began to wonder if he and I ever had.

  There were days when I hated him. There were times when I was angry for falling into the trap of love. I blamed William for the loss of the child; I blamed him for everything. I tried to forget William Shakespeare, but I could not. Little things reminded me of him. When I wrote, I could feel him caressing my skin. When I was lonely, I thought about the times we were really happy. I thought about his kisses and his promises.

  There were signs, just as he had promised. He sent me his first book of poetry—direct from his house in London—and I hid it under the mattress for years. It had that fresh smell of new pages, printed and bound together with love and care. When I opened it, its binding crackled as a new book does when it is opened. In his poems he spoke of someone beautiful and dark and mysterious, someone he should not have loved. “If this error and upon me proved, I never writ, nor no man ever loved.”

  His sonnets held me to him. They were the one thing that kept me from denying I had ever loved him. I saw his attempts to win me back through his words. “Hold on,” they seemed to say. “I will come for you.” “You shall live—such virtue hath my pen—where breath most breathes, even in the mouths of men.”

  Years went by, and I began to accept my life as it was. It would never be as I had dreamed it, but I had given up on dreams long ago. I had given up on everything that seemed to matter.

  Life went on. I grew older. I watched my son grow from a child to a man, and I watched as Alfonso handed over the business to him a few years after the queen’s death.

  We journeyed to Westminster Abbey to attend her funeral. Alfonso played; he had always been one of her favorite musicians. All the ladiesin-waiting were there, the newly widowed Frances included, though she refused to look at me and turned her slender back to me. The abbey was filled with those who had both admired and despised her. I could hear sobs and sniffles in front of and behind me. Pained voices echoed in my ears, and the hymns we sung were loud with grief. The bells rang, as they had so many times before. I did not sing the songs. I did not cry. I stood there with my son, no longer a baby, at my side.

  I saw Margaret. She was on the far side of the abbey, and I did catch her eye. She smiled at me sadly and closed her eyes. Even from a distance, I could see she was crying. The woman who had always told her what to do still held a place in her heart. And I hated to think it, but she still did in mine too.

  I looked for William in the crowd. Whether he was there or not, I will never know. The mass of people was too large, and I could imagine that he didn’t wish to see Alfonso. There was a part of me that could feel him there, whether or not he was.

  The country grieved for Elizabeth in many ways, for her intelligence and spirit, her wit and her beauty, but they did not grieve for the harm she had caused. As a final claim of superiority, she had executed her lover, the Earl of Essex, two years before she herself left this world. His lack of respect for the queen’s tempestuous nature had been rewarded with the loss of his head.

  I was never again happy as I had been with William, but I was never miserable. I lived my life with new wisdom and understanding. The loss of a child and the loss of a lover had brought a new perspective. Every time I felt alone, I would take out the book of sonnets and remind myself that he loved me. He was always on my mind…sometimes hated, yet always loved. Over time, the loathing was not directed at the memory of him, but at the memory of what could never be.

  Alfonso grew older. His hair became lined with gray. He no longer felt the need to scorn me. We lived off the money we saved and the small bit of income my newly published book acquired. We rarely spoke to each other as a husband and wife should, and I never loved him. I would never love anyone again. He would sit alone by the old hearth, reading letters or staring into the fire and grumbling when he needed me.

  Then, one evening, he spoke of William.

  “Emilia,” he said, his voice hoarse with age. He had been greatly affected by the recent damp weather.

  “Yes,” I replied, glancing up from my sewing.

  “I need you to do a favor for me.”

  I nodded. “Of course.”

  “I need you to go to Stratford.”

  I wondered what he would be doing in Stratford.

  “Why?”

  “William Shakespeare is dying.”

  I dropped my sewing in my lap.

  He waited for my answer, his eyes still on the glowing fire and his thoughts on long ago. Did he miss William as much as I did?

  It took me a moment to steady my voice enough to reply. I did not want it to seem as though I was too eager or too disheartened.

  “Yes, I will go.”

  I GATHERED MY SKIRTS from around me then kissed my fingers and placed them silently on the stone, feeling the rough rock underneath. I dropped a single white rose at the base. I stood up slowly. I felt as though my body would break with the thought of seeing William again. It had been so long.

  I walked through the streets, avoiding people and thinking about what I would say. What could I say? Words I had rehearsed in my mind felt strained when said aloud. A man with a large cart full of fish yelled at me to get out of his way, but I hardly noticed. I let my skirts drag through the mud. It had always been so easy, before, to talk to him. I decided I wouldn’t rehearse anything.

  When I reached our door, I opened it expecting to see Alfonso in his usual place. Instead, I found him in our bedroom, packing most of my tattered clothes. He looked up at me and grunted.

  “You’re going to need these,” was all he said.

  I took the bag from him gently. His eyes looked me over. His face was ragged, and his expression was one of regret, as though he missed his best friend more than he could say. What we all gave up to appease the queen.

  “Tell him,” he added. “Tell him that I have always thought of him as my friend.”

  “All right,” I said.

  “And tell him that if he needs anything in his final hours, I will provide it for him.”

  I nodded.

  He sighed softly and sadly. “Do you know the way?”

  I nodded for the second time. It would be about a two days’ ride. I would go on horseback; it was faster than taking a carriage. I hoped I could reach him in time.

  He handed me two more objects that I had failed to see in his gnarled hand before. They were books. Two books. One was mine, and the other was William’s sonnets. Their covers looked as old as he did; I had read through them again and again.

  “You never stopped hoping, did you?” he asked.

  It was all I could do to keep from weeping. It was the first loving act I had ever received from my husband. I wanted to let him know how much it meant to me that he had never beaten me because of my love for William. I wanted him to know how much I appreciated that he had taken me back after everything I had done.

  But all I could
do was look him in the eyes and give him a smile. Time had changed everything. I didn’t love him any more than I ever had, but I finally knew what William had meant when he said Alfonso, the moon, could shine as the sun.

  He smiled back sadly and cocked his head toward the door, indicating that it was time for me to go. I walked down the steps to the door, feeling his eyes on me. I knew how he wished he could go, as well. It was a shame to be an old man with bad health and too much pride. We said our good-byes, and I mounted his horse that was patiently tied outside. I waved once, staring at his figure in the doorway.

  And then I kicked the horse lightly and began my journey to Stratford-upon-Avon.

  IT WAS EXACTLY AS I predicted; I arrived in the tiny town of Stratford two days after leaving my house. I had stayed a night at an inn along the road and continued on in the morning, my heart pounding with anticipation and fear. I had imagined this scene in my mind over and over again, but I had never imagined it like this.

  My entire body shook as I neared the tiny town. Several cattle on a farm just outside the village looked lazily in my direction. I saw only one person on the road and asked him where I could find Master Shakespeare’s home. He pointed to the center of town with his browned hand, saying it was not far from the school.

  It had begun to rain by then, fat drops of water landing on the top of my head and shoulders. I rode through the town as quickly as I could so I would not get wet, but I found it hopeless. William would just have to accept me as I was. Now there was more than one reason I was shaking.

  I tied my horse outside the small house. I unpacked the few things I wished to bring in to him. The house was nothing like I had imagined. It was kept up nicely, and it was one of the nicer houses in the area. There was a flowerbed not far from the door, and the exterior had been recently painted and tended to.