Shakespeare's Witch

by Samantha Grosser

  ‘Shall we?’ she asked him, and he nodded and pushed open the door.

  The door opened onto a low-ceilinged room with a wide hearth, tables and chairs strewn randomly at odd angles. There was dirty straw on the floor, and small groups of men of all sorts sat drinking. A couple of low-looking women in gaudy clothes were looking bored by the fire, and a great dog of some unknown breed padded across to sniff them, before turning away, uninterested. No one else paid them any attention. There was no sign of Tom or any of the others of the Company. Sarah took a deep breath and wove her way between the tables and chairs towards the women. They looked up at her approach with curiosity.

  ‘Good evening to you,’ she greeted them, dropping her head politely.

  ‘Good day to you, mistress,’ one of them answered. ‘What can we do for you and your friend?’

  Ignoring the suggestion and the sly smile that went with it, she hurried on. ‘I’m looking for someone – a man named Tom Wynter. He was in here earlier with a company of players from the playhouse just across the way.’

  The younger woman’s expression changed from bored curiosity to concern. ‘You want Tom?’

  ‘You know him?’ Sarah asked.

  ‘I might do,’ the girl said carefully. She was very young, Sarah realised, perhaps fifteen or so, and she had pretty eyes. Then she thought of the girl Joan with her dead, cursed babies, and wondered if this girl would end up the same. ‘What do you want with him?’

  ‘He’s my brother and I have grave news for him.’

  The girl flicked a glance to the older woman, who shrugged and turned away. ‘I might know where he is,’ she said.

  ‘Thank you,’ Sarah breathed.

  ‘Come with me.’ She led them back across the room and into the street, where the drizzle had hardened into a steady downpour. The girl had no cloak to cover her but she bowed her head into it and kept walking towards the river, her footsteps sure in the stickiness of the mud. Sarah pulled her own hood further forward and the water dripped off its edge before her face. After a few minutes, the girl turned in at another door and down a flight of stairs to a cellar that rang with voices, the hubbub echoing off the low ceiling. Halfway down the steps, she stopped, casting her eye across the drinkers. One of them recognised her and yelled out, but she merely cocked her head at him and turned on her heel.

  ‘Not here,’ she said.

  They followed her into three more places that seemed the same, all the time moving closer to the water, skirting the church and Winchester Palace along tortuous lanes that Sarah had never ventured into before. They found him finally in the Castle on the Hoop by the river, still drinking with Nick and John and a couple of the others. ‘He’s over there,’ the girl said, pointing. ‘Tell him Jane helped you. I’ve got to get back.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Sarah said, but by the time she had reached into her purse for a coin to give her, the girl had gone.

  Sarah moved through the crowd towards her brother, Simon at her heel. It was the most crowded place they had been to, and the jostling as she made her way across the room was disconcerting. She was aware too of the looks she was drawing, so she kept her head down and pushed on. This was no inn for travellers. Finally she reached Tom’s table, but it was Nick who saw her first. He stood up and guided her to a stool beside him, his arm protectively around her. For a moment her errand was forgotten, all her senses alive to his closeness and relief at knowing she was safe.

  ‘Sarah!’ he exclaimed. ‘What on earth brings you here?’

  ‘I was looking for Tom,’ she replied.

  Her brother leaned across the narrow table and took her hand in his. ‘What’s happened? Why are you here?’

  ‘Father has disowned you …’

  Confusion crossed her brother’s face, and disbelief. ‘But why?’ he managed to say. ‘What have I done?’

  She shook her head, overwhelmed by all of it now that her brother was found and her message delivered. Tears prickled in her eyes and she blinked hard and set her jaw.

  ‘Sarah?’ Nick’s face was close to hers. ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘If I talk I’ll cry,’ she told him and he smiled, drawing her closer in towards him.

  Someone gave her a cup of ale and she drank it. Then Tom changed places with another man and sat on the other side of her. She shifted a little away from Nick and turned to her brother, who refilled her cup. She drank more. It was watery and bitter but she felt the beginnings of a pleasant wooziness in her thoughts and a warmth inside.

  ‘What happened?’ Tom asked again.

  ‘He asked about the play,’ she began, ‘so I told him and he said he could bear no more from you and that you are no longer his son.’

  Tom drew back from her a little and slid a glance across the table towards John, who was watching it all, leaning in close to hear better. ‘I have never been his son,’ he said.

  ‘You can’t come home.’

  ‘He can stay with me,’ Nick said, touching a reassuring hand to her arm. ‘There is room enough.’

  She smiled, grateful, and then she remembered about Simon and lifted her head to look for him, but he was nowhere to be seen. He must have gone home, she guessed, once he had seen her to safety. She hoped he would find his way back without mishap.

  ‘How did you find me?’ Tom asked.

  ‘Jane,’ she said, and told him what had happened.

  Someone refilled her cup again. She was feeling light-headed now, unfamiliar sensations pulsing through her. She smiled up at Nick, content to be near him, their shoulders touching as one or other of them shifted in their seats.

  Nick spoke to Tom above her head. ‘This is no place for your sister to be.’

  ‘I can’t take her home,’ Tom answered.

  ‘My house, then.’

  Tom took her hand and led her through the crowd to the door.

  Nick’s house was small – on the end of a row of houses just south of Paris Garden, timber framed, wattle and daub, red tiles on the roof. Lead-lighted windows gave myriad reflections of the torch that Nick carried to light their way in the dark. But it was well kept and pretty, with trees beside it that bordered the lane. From the hallway a door opened into a wide, low-ceilinged room, and inside John set to making a fire. The room warmed quickly, the chimney drawing well. Sarah looked around her, content, still fuzzy from the ale. The room was simply furnished – a dark wooden table and chairs, a sideboard with a few pewter plates, a hardbacked chair either side of the hearth. Fresh rushes were strewn across the floorboards, and a single Turkey rug lay before the fire. She took her place on it, curling her legs beneath her.

  ‘It’s a fine house,’ Sarah said, when Nick took his seat by the fire.

  He smiled. ‘Thank you.’ Then, holding out the jug, ‘Wine?’

  She hesitated, her head still light, but the others were drinking and she wanted to be part of it all, so she accepted the cup and sipped at it cautiously. It was a world she had never thought to join, this male club of players, and to be so near to Nick was intoxicating. There was a pause, a moment of awkwardness, and she realised that she was the cause, their easy familiarity thrown by the presence of a woman.

  ‘Please,’ she said. ‘Don’t mind me. Pretend I’m not here.’

  Nick laughed. ‘Why would we want to do that?’ he asked. ‘It isn’t often we have a pretty girl in our company.’

  She felt the flush brush her cheeks and looked away. The wine was very strong and her thoughts were beginning to blur. To cover her embarrassment she took another a mouthful.

  ‘Will you be in trouble with your father tomorrow?’ Nick asked.

  ‘I’m hoping he won’t ever know that I was gone. My mother would never tell him.’ She looked across to Tom, who shrugged. ‘She tried to change his mind,’ she told him. ‘She tried to make it better.’

  ‘She never stood up for me before,’ he said. ‘Not once.’

  She was silent for a moment. His bitterness against their mother was unexpected �
�� she had always thought them united as a band against her father, the magic of the ways they shared together binding them against his Christian zeal.

  She said, ‘She married him so you would have a father. She has no more love for him than you do.’

  ‘I know.’ He nodded. ‘But still …’

  She knew that there was more he would have said to her alone, but Nick and John were listening and so she changed the subject. ‘What was your father like?’ she asked. ‘Can you remember much?’

  Tom gave a half-smile, half-shrug. ‘Only a little. I was very young when he died. But I remember that he sang all day, and if we ever heard music in the street we would have to stop and listen till it was done.’

  ‘That’s a lovely memory,’ she said. ‘I’ll have no recollections like that about my father.’

  ‘Nor I about mine,’ Nick said. ‘I can only recall the hard work and the beatings.’ He paused, recollecting. Then he said, ‘My father kept a roadside inn and the work was endless. Which is why I ran away when I was fourteen years old and the players came. I’d never seen anything so magical, nor even imagined such a world could exist. I was hooked from the very first moment.’

  ‘What did they play?’ She was enthralled, well understanding the spell of the theatre’s world of shadows and dreams.

  ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream,’ he said. ‘I wanted to be Puck.’

  ‘Me too,’ Tom laughed. ‘I still do.’

  ‘And me,’ John said.

  They sat in comfortable silence then for a time, watching the fire. She drank more of the wine and her eyes began to feel heavy. It would be nice, she thought, to lie down before the fire and sleep for a while. It was warm and comfortable and she felt safe with her brother and Nick. She was glad she had come.

  Finally, Nick got up and stretched, yawning. From her place on the rug she could see the pink flesh of his cheek inside his mouth and she turned her face away. When she lifted her face again he was looking at her. ‘You can have my bed,’ he said. ‘I’ll sleep by the fire.’

  ‘No,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘I can’t turn you out of your bed.’

  ‘It’s not fitting for you to sleep here. You have my chamber. Come, I’ll show you.’ He reached down a hand and she took it, her small hand encased in the long strong fingers as he helped her to stand. She stood for a moment, slightly off balance, and he kept hold of her hand to steady her.

  ‘Good night, Tom,’ she said, turning. ‘John.’

  They nodded their good nights, and she followed Nick up the stairs to a tiny landing with a door on either side of it and another staircase that led up to an attic. He gave her the candle and opened one of the doors.

  ‘Sleep well, Sarah,’ he said. ‘Sweet dreams.’

  ‘You too,’ she replied. There was a brief moment of hesitation, standing close to him in the darkness, aware of his breath, his warmth, the memory of his hand against hers. For a heartbeat she thought he would kiss her. Then the moment passed and she stepped through the door and closed it behind her.

  Tom followed John to the other chamber, the single candle flickering against the darkness inside, the one large bed dominating the room. Tom walked to the window and leaned against it, looking out, but he could see nothing but the shifting reflection of the room. He turned and rested his hips on the ledge and watched as John stripped off his outer clothes in readiness for bed, narrow limbs shivering in the cold. Then he stood by the bed in his shirt, pale skin wan in the sickly light from the candle.

  ‘Are you coming to bed?’ John asked. ‘It’s cold.’

  ‘I’m coming to bed,’ Tom replied. John was still just a boy, he thought. Still so innocent. He turned his eyes away and shook his head, trying to shift the images that persisted, the urges that incited him on. It would be so easy to take him tonight, he thought, and to corrupt him against his will, but it was not the path he wanted to follow. He wanted John to turn willingly, to have him surrender through his own desire. It was a longer game and more of a challenge, and he was uncertain how to begin. He started to undress, aware of John watching him from the bed, the covers pulled up now around him against the night air. He felt his cock stir and turned away. It was too soon for that, he knew. He had to be careful.

  Forcing his mind to an image of his father, a memory of harsh and brutal beatings, the desire slid away for long enough that he could undress and hide himself beneath the covers. When he was settled, John blew out the candle and they lay there side by side in the darkness. The knowledge of the young body next to his so close in the bed stirred the lust again, making him hard.

  ‘Are you sleepy?’ John whispered.

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘Me neither. Can we talk for a while?’

  ‘If you like.’

  ‘What will you do now your father’s disowned you?’

  ‘I suppose I will work to keep myself until I can work no more and then I will die poor, same as most others.’

  ‘Can you not talk to him? Ask him to change his mind?’

  In the dark, Tom smiled. ‘You’ve not met my father.’

  There was a silence. Then John said, ‘I wish I could help.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Tom replied, and reached across the space of cold sheet that lay between them and squeezed John’s hand in gratitude. John returned the pressure of his fingers and Tom allowed his hand to remain so that they lay there for a while hand in hand, until finally he heard the change in John’s breathing, slow and quiet and regular. Then slowly, careful not to startle him, he withdrew his hand and silently, quickly, gave himself up to the lust.

  Downstairs, Nick lay sleepless too before the dying fire, wrapped in a quilt and blankets that did little to soften the floor under his shoulders. Shifting in his makeshift bed, he tried vainly to get more comfortable. Then he thought of his own soft bed upstairs and Sarah, sleeping in its comfort. He let his mind linger on the thought, taking time to create an image of her in his mind, lying in the bed in her shift, no longer a child. He had noticed her as a woman the last few days, aware of her body and her eyes, the fullness of her lips. She was pretty, he thought, and young and unspoiled, and after tonight he suspected she might harbour feelings for him. He wondered if she was sleeping now or lying awake, restless as he was. A memory of Catherine Shawe in the same bed trailed across the corner of his thoughts and he brushed it away. She was as good as dead to him now and he had been a fool to think it could end any other way. She had loved him solely for the adventure of it, the danger of courting a Bankside player – he was sure of it; anything more had been an illusion. But the knowledge did not assuage the hurt. That, he guessed, would only come with time.

  Still restless, he sat up again and hugged his knees, watching the ashes that glowed, pulsating in the dying throes of their heat, and struggling with the thought of the girl in his bed upstairs. It was tempting; she had been giddy with wine and ale and he was certain she would give herself willingly, but she was not some drab to use and cast aside, and he was unsure yet if he wanted anything more. In spite of all he knew of Catherine, his heart still ached with want for her, and he was unsure if Sarah could fill the void, if he should even try to yet. He sighed and pulled the covers closer round his shoulders.

  His mind turned, searching for something else to occupy his thoughts, but they caught again and again on the image of Sarah, half-naked in his bed. Eventually, he simply let the image stay, travelling his imagination across her body, remembering the moment at her door when he might have kissed her. He should have, he reflected now. Just a kiss and nothing more. He smiled to himself at the thought of it, then lay himself back down on the rug and in minutes he was asleep.

  Chapter Seven

  The Cry of Women

  In the morning they rose early and Sarah’s head ached from the wine. She walked with the others as far as the playhouse, then bid them farewell and headed on towards home. The rain had stopped overnight, but the clouds were still heavy and the ground underfoot was soft and slippery
. She tried to avoid the worst of it, picking her way carefully, but by the time she reached Narrow Lane, her boots were coated and the hem of her skirt was heavy with wet. Near the house she slowed, nerves weighting down her steps with the fear of discovery, and she sent a silent prayer to the spirits for aid.

  Outside the house she paused a moment, looking up to cast her eyes across the three storeys of the narrow building, one in a long terraced row at the southern end of Southwark, nestled amongst a myriad of artisans’ shops and merchant houses. The tailor’s sign hung silently in the still of the morning – on a windy day it squeaked and rattled as it swung. The shop window was already propped open and she could see the bolts of cloth and a half-made jerkin on the dummy. With luck her father was already at work, safe out of the way in the back of the shop, though she could not see him. Perhaps he was further inside, out of sight. She hoped so. Then, taking a deep breath, she shoved open the heavy front door and trotted up the stairs to find her mother.

  In the first-floor chamber the family was still at breakfast. She halted in the doorway, taking in the scene as dread swept up from her gut. Her father saw her first and fixed her with a glare.

  ‘Close the door,’ he commanded.

  She did as she was told and took a couple of steps closer. Her father rose from his place at the table and came towards her. She swallowed and cast a nervous glance towards her mother, who looked away. She had rarely raised her father’s anger, though she’d seen it often against her brother, and she braced herself for what was coming. Breathe, she told herself. Just breathe. But her pulse still hammered and the ache in her head shifted forward. He stood a foot away, and she could smell the ale he had drunk with breakfast on his breath.