Shakespeare's Witch

by Samantha Grosser

  ‘No!’ John was screaming. ‘I cannot … I must not … You are wicked to do such things to me. I am lost … I am lost …’ He fell to his knees and clasped his hands before him in agonised, murmured prayer as Tom sat up slowly, watching him, rubbing at his temple where the blow had landed, still in shock and waiting for John to grow tired of prayer. But the boy showed no signs of stopping, the murmured litany of sins still tumbling from his lips, eyes closed, hands clasped in frantic supplication.

  Tom rose to his feet and moved away, disturbed by the boy’s devotions and hating the God who had just spoiled his pleasure. He thought of his stepfather and the dismal Sundays of his childhood, spent on his knees in prayer and repentance for as yet unknown sins. Even then he had hated the Church, chafing against the rules and restrictions. There had been no joy in the house after his own father died, no laughter, no games, only harsh words and discipline, punishment for his failure to feel the fear of God his stepfather urged. No wonder he had turned his back on it.

  Standing at the bench, he turned his gaze once more to watch John as he prayed. He felt no guilt. The boy had told him he lusted for men – what else should he have done? He sighed, losing patience with John’s piety. If he couldn’t have him, he wanted to be alone, not listening to a hum of mumbled prayer that returned him to his own miserable childhood. ‘Go home, John,’ he said.

  The prayers continued. He seemed not to have heard. Tom approached him and squatted down in front of him until their faces were almost level. ‘Go home.’

  John’s eyes slid reluctantly towards him. They were wide with fear and surprise and he sidled backwards, away.

  ‘Go home,’ Tom repeated.

  ‘You are evil to tempt me so,’ John whispered, ‘to lure me into sin. Surely the Devil himself has sent you to snare my soul …’

  ‘No.’ Tom shook his head. ‘No, I was just mistaken. I thought you wanted me …’

  John stared.

  ‘Didn’t you?’ Tom persisted. Surely he couldn’t deny it: his desire had been plain to see. Tom sat back on his heels to put some distance between them. He was beginning to regret he had started any of this, but it was too late to retreat altogether. Besides, he knew now for sure that John desired him; it could only be a matter of time until he fell. He would just have to be patient. ‘Go home, John,’ he said again. ‘Go home.’

  ‘What about you?’ John was already scrambling to his feet and moving away like a frightened animal before a hunter. It was almost comical.

  ‘I’ll sleep here,’ he said.

  John said nothing more but turned and fled, pausing at the door only a moment to allow his eyes to adjust to the darkness outside. Tom heard the rhythmic patter of his feet as he hastened down the stairs. Then he sighed, vacillating, wondering if he should seek out Jane again and slake his lust with her, but he was weary with all the emotion, and the new knowledge that she loved him weighed him against it. He would sleep on the couch and see to his own pleasure.

  Sometimes, he thought with a wry smile, it was just the easiest thing to do.

  Chapter Nine

  This Slumbery Agitation

  Just before supper, Sarah heard her mother’s light footsteps on the stairs. A small flare of hope lit inside her that she might be reprieved from the fireless, candleless dark of her confinement. Remaining huddled in the bed, the only way to keep warm, she waited and watched the light of her mother’s candle wax and wane through the narrow space above the door. Then the door opened and the straight, narrow figure of her mother entered, closing the door quickly behind her, before she crossed to the bed.

  ‘I brought you some bread and butter, and some salve for the welts,’ she whispered. ‘Your father is still in the shop.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  She put the hunk of bread and a jug of ale on the small table beside the window. Then she turned back to her daughter. ‘You found your brother last night?’

  ‘He’s staying at Master Tooley’s house. He’ll be all right.’

  ‘You stayed there also?’

  She pretended not to hear the subtle question underneath, averting her eyes from her mother’s scrutiny. ‘Yes,’ she replied. Her mother sat on the edge of the bed and took her hand, holding the fingers tightly, warm and strong and reassuring. For a moment they remained so in silent, affectionate connection. Then Sarah said, ‘Is there nothing we can do?’

  ‘For you or for Tom?’

  Sarah gave a wry smile. ‘For either of us.’ Then, ‘What does he plan to do with me?’

  ‘He will marry you to Simon,’ her mother answered. ‘Even so young as you are.’

  She said nothing and her heart seemed to drop inside her breast. She had known, of course, that her father had wanted the marriage, but she was still so young – she had thought she had years left of freedom, years in which the world might change its course. Regret heaved in her innards, a physical ache. It was hard to imagine she could be a wife so soon and that Simon would be the man to break her into womanhood when Nick had been so nearly in her reach. They had been so close; the almost-kiss at his door, the softness of his bed, all snatched away in a moment. Her future stretched bleak before her, and the darkness of the fate she foresaw in the shewstone overshadowed it all.

  ‘You could do worse than Simon.’ Her mother smiled.

  ‘I could also do better.’

  ‘Perhaps. But it’s not your decision to make.’ She paused. ‘Nor mine.’

  ‘He is set on it, then?’

  Her mother nodded. ‘I’m sorry – I know it isn’t what you hoped for. But Simon will be a kind husband and there’s much to be said for that.’ She gave her daughter a rueful smile and slid her eyes away.

  ‘You’ve known both kind and unkind, I think.’

  Elizabeth nodded and patted her daughter’s hand.

  Then Sarah said, ‘And Tom? Surely we can do something for Tom?’

  Her mother shook her head gently. ‘Your father has only ever tolerated your brother, and Tom has surely not helped himself. He set his heart against him from the first. He was willful, always insolent. Even at a tender age he would goad him into fury, both of them too proud to bend. And now … this … when he knows what his father thinks of such things.’ She gave a small shrug of hopelessness.

  ‘He did not choose the part.’ It was instinct to defend him.

  ‘He chose the playhouse,’ her mother said. ‘Your father wanted him as his apprentice – he would have forgiven him much if Tom had agreed to it, for what father does not want a son to follow him? But Tom wouldn’t have it. And the playhouse is everything your father despises: ungodly, sinful, a mire of wickedness, full of whores and rogues.’

  ‘You know that it isn’t so, don’t you? There are good and bad, same as anywhere.’ She couldn’t bear to hear the people she loved and the world she adored so reviled.

  ‘Of course I do. I loved the playhouse. Will was Tom’s father’s dearest friend.’

  Sarah hesitated a moment. ‘And he is still yours?’ she ventured.

  Elizabeth gave her daughter a reluctant smile. ‘Yes, he has remained a good friend through all these years. Quietly, secretly, loyally, his friendship has been constant.’

  Sarah returned the smile. It was good to know her mother was not alone.

  ‘Now I must go,’ Elizabeth said, ‘before your father discovers me here. I’ll leave you the candle.’ She bent forward and kissed her daughter’s cheek. ‘Blessed be,’ she murmured.

  ‘Blessed be,’ Sarah returned. Then she watched her mother slip silently away and back to her life beyond the door before she turned to the tray of food her mother had brought and began to eat.

  She dreams she is in a forest of pine at night, walking barefoot on the cold, soft earth. A full moon glimmers through the branches of the oaks overhead, brushing silver hues across everything it touches, and a stream trickles lazily beside her – she seems to be following its path upstream, searching for the source, and despite the darkness, she finds h
er way easily, unafraid.

  In time she comes to a clearing where the stream begins, emerging from an outcrop of rocks to spill into a pool that fills before it overflows and runs off along its way. Stepping out of her shift, she slides into the water and lowers herself down until the surface laps around her shoulders. It is cool and clear and sweet, and she is tempted to submerge herself, to give herself to the sacred water and stay in this place always.

  Then, one by one, four men approach to stand at the edge of the pool, one at each point of the compass. She feels no shame at her nakedness before them, no fear, content and at ease in the pure crystal water. She has no doubt this is where she is meant to be. Wheeling slowly, the rock hard and smooth beneath her legs, she regards each of them in turn. As she turns, each man holds out a hand to beckon her to them, and she sees then that they too are naked.

  She goes first to stand before her father, out of habit of respect and obedience, and he speaks to her, though with no voice she can hear with her ears.

  Bride thou shalt be, obedient daughter of Christ.

  Placing one hand on her shoulder, and the other on her breast, he rests them there until she steps away and drops back into the water to wash herself free of the taint of his touch.

  Then she turns to Simon.

  Wife thou shalt be, loving mother of children, though none of mine.

  He too places one hand on her shoulder and one on her breast, until she slips away from his touch also to rinse herself clean in the pool.

  Then she goes to Tom, whose skin is taut and pale in the moonlight: his nakedness before her quickens her breath. He steps closer.

  Lover thou shalt be, spirit of the earth.

  For a long moment she waits before him, and when finally he lifts his hand to her breast, she gasps as a charge fires between them. She steps closer, her breasts pressing against his ribs and his member hard against her belly. Desire flares through her before he takes her hand in his and leads her to stand before Nick. She waits, drinking in the beauty of the man who stands before her, his muscles strong and vivid in the silver light.

  Mistress thou shalt be, if thou so wills it.

  He reaches for her hands and lifts them to his lips, drawing her closer in towards him. Then she stands against him, and with his touch to her breast, she feels herself begin to fall, floating and free.

  When she woke, it was morning and the window was bright with the early sun. The dream was still clear in her mind, and the sense of its freedom suffused her, desire and confidence mingled and intoxicating.

  In the dream she had chosen her path.

  She could not obey her father and she could not marry Simon. Her fate lay with her brother and with Nick, a freer world, in spite of the difficulties. The only way out was to flee, but beyond that knowledge she hardly dared to think. She would be a woman alone with no father or husband to protect her, and no place under the law. An image of the girl with the six-fingered baby bore into her thoughts. Would she end up the same, she wondered, forced to sell her body to survive, to men far more repulsive than Simon, men who would beat her and force her to do unspeakable things? The prospect of such a fate filled her with terror but she closed her mind to it: she had Tom to help her and her skill with a needle, a small income from the playhouse.

  But was it possible?

  And always, behind all the doubt, lay the shadow of the death she had foreseen in the shewstone.

  At the playhouse Nick went to find Tom upstairs in the wardrobe. The younger man was working at his bench, bent over some breeches he was stitching for one of the lords, and he turned at Nick’s approach and laid down the sewing. He looked tired, Nick thought, too many late nights and too much ale had leached the colour from his cheeks and darkened the skin around his eyes. Soon he would lose the beauty of his youth.

  Nick pulled up the other stool and sat at the bench so that the two men were facing each other. Tom regarded him with open curiosity, and there was a silence while Nick framed his questions in his mind. Finally, he decided just to come out with it and ask directly. He said, ‘What happened with John last night?’

  ‘Not much.’ Tom shrugged. ‘He refused Jane’s attentions. He is still, unequivocally, a virgin.’

  Nick smiled. He had thought as much. ‘Did you expect anything else?’

  ‘He’s almost a man. I thought … It doesn’t really matter what I thought. He is different from me.’

  ‘Yes, he is.’ As different as the sea from the sun, Nick thought. Then he hesitated, wondering whether to ask more. Regarding Tom carefully, he tried to read the younger man’s face, suspecting there was a darkness that lurked beneath the handsome features, an ugliness that found its outlet too easily in whores and drink. Scratch beneath the affable surface, he guessed, and he would find corruption: Tom had lost his innocence a long time since.

  ‘John was almost incoherent when he got home,’ he said. ‘He was rambling about witchcraft and wickedness, asking for God’s forgiveness.’

  ‘A budding Puritan?’ Tom smiled. ‘Perhaps he will leave the playhouse for the Church.’

  ‘Aye, perhaps,’ Nick answered. ‘He has always been sensitive – it is his greatest gift as a player. But last night was something different. I’ve never seen him so distraught. He threw himself at my feet. He held my legs and sobbed. I could barely prise him off me. I had to carry him to his bed and stay with him till he slept.’ He kept his voice even as he spoke, acting to conceal the truth of his feelings, the sense of fear that John’s distress had evoked in him. The boy had been terrified for the safety of his soul, shaking and crying as though he had committed some terrible sin beyond redemption. Nick had never seen such terror in another person, and it had unnerved him, awakening his own latent fears. He had slept badly afterward, haunted by dreams of the Devil, and he could not imagine what had provoked John’s anguish. It surely must have been something more than the unwanted advances of a whore.

  ‘How is he this morning?’ Tom asked, returning to his stitching.

  ‘Quiet,’ Nick answered. ‘Pale. He said nothing. How was he when he left you last night?’

  Tom hesitated for half a heartbeat, but Nick observed it and knew the other man was hiding something. ‘He was upset,’ Tom admitted. ‘Perhaps we tried too hard with Jane against his objections. I thought he’d come round. I thought it was just timidity.’

  ‘But witchcraft?’ Nick said. ‘Why would he say he was bewitched?’ He wasn’t bothered about the sex or the pressure Tom and Jane had brought to bear on his virginity. Such things were a normal part of boyhood and becoming a man, especially on Bankside. But he persisted because he knew there was something more and that Tom wasn’t telling all of it.

  ‘My stepfather suspects witchcraft behind any sinful act,’ Tom offered. ‘Perhaps John’s the same. Perhaps he thinks whores are daughters of the Devil.’

  ‘It wasn’t Jane he was accusing,’ Nick said carefully.

  Tom’s breathing stopped for a moment and he left off his sewing, laying aside the satin breeches on the bench. Then he looked up at Nick across from him with his full attention for the first time.

  ‘What did he say?’ Tom asked.

  ‘He said you truly are a witch. Not just a player in a play. He said that you bewitched him. You and your sister.’

  Tom swallowed and dropped his head, eyes tracing the lines of the fabric in his hands, fingers smoothing out the creases. ‘I am not a witch,’ he said. ‘And neither is Sarah. Surely you don’t believe so?’ He looked up then, searching Nick’s face for an answer. ‘Surely?’

  ‘I don’t know what to believe,’ Nick replied. ‘I only know that he was terrified and that you haven’t told me all.’

  Tom nodded, acknowledging the accusation, and Nick could see the struggle of his thoughts, the desire for concealment against his fear of the charge of witchcraft.

  ‘Nick, please,’ he said, after a time. ‘Don’t press me. Just believe that I am no witch. Please.’

  Nick sat b
ack, considering, regarding the younger man whose face was now taut with concern, his fear of discovery of whatever secrets he was keeping. It seemed unlikely after all that he had bewitched the boy. Perhaps Tom was right. Perhaps John’s accusations were the product of an overwrought mind, his fears of the sins of the flesh. The boy was not going to last long in the world of the players if he kept up with such imaginings. It was a rough, tough life, and the Puritans were not wholly wrong in their assessment of its depravity. It was surely no place for the pious. He nodded, allowing Tom the benefit of his doubt. ‘But you must make it up with John before tonight. Or you sleep elsewhere.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Tom murmured. ‘Thank you.’

  Nick tilted his head in acknowledgement and got up from the stool. Then, at the head of the stairs, he turned back. Tom was still watching him, the breeches still on the bench. ‘Where is your sister?’ Nick asked. He knew very little of her parents but he guessed a night-time trip to the taverns of Bankside would be ill-received by all but the kindest of fathers. He hoped she hadn’t been ill-treated.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Tom answered, and Nick heard the concern in his voice, the same worry as his own. But he said nothing, only ducked his head and lowered himself down the steep steps that led down through the tiring house towards the stage and rehearsal below.

  Chapter Ten

  A Peerless Kinsman

  In a break from rehearsal, Tom lowered himself down the steps from the wardrobe and sauntered out onto the stage. The players were gathered in small groups, chatting, eating, going over their lines. John was with Nick and Will and John Heminges, seated behind the yard in the lowest tier of the gallery, but he sat a little apart from them and his attention seemed elsewhere.

  Tom hesitated, unsure if he should approach him now when he was with others or if it would be better to catch him alone. With others he guessed would be safer, so he dropped down into the yard and made his way across the open space to sit beside him on the bench. John watched him approach and Tom could see the tension in his jaw and posture, eyes following his every move, wide and childlike. He took his seat on the bench with enough distance between them that there was no chance of them touching, and the memory of the taste of him filled his senses, making it hard to focus on the words he needed.