Shakespeare's Witch

by Samantha Grosser

  Then the slam of an outside door broke the spell, and the stocky figure of her father barged in and strode across the yard towards the stage. Instinctively she shrank back, holding her breath, and the welts on her thighs began to throb.

  ‘Why, worthy thane,

  You do unbend your noble strength, to think

  So brainsickly of things. Go, get some water,

  And wash this filthy witness from your hand…’

  John paused in his line, his attention distracted by the interruption.

  Nick looked up at the hesitation, following John’s gaze to light on the newcomer. Sarah saw the brief look of question they exchanged, but Will, standing in his usual place at the edge of the stage, recognised the intruder straight away; there had only ever been hostility between the two men, the first husband’s friend resented by the second husband, who had tried and failed to cut him from the family’s life. Will crossed to centre stage, murmured something to the others, and they followed him down the steps to greet her father, standing at a distance to cover Will’s back, or so it seemed to her. All eyes were watching the scene as it unfolded, the whole Company tense with attention, and she cast another searching look across the playhouse for Tom, flinching in surprise when he appeared as if by magic at her side. He placed his arm around her shoulders and drew her in tight against him. She gave him a small smile of gratitude and they moved out from the gallery together and into the yard to hear better what was said.

  ‘Where is my daughter?’ Stone demanded.

  Will said nothing, still taking the other man’s measure. She could see the distrust and contempt in his eyes. They should have told Will straight away, she realised. He had a right to know.

  ‘Where is she?’

  ‘She is here,’ Will answered then, lifting one arm to gesture towards her at her father’s back. Stone swung round to see and Tom led her forward, but he did not let go of her hand. She gripped it hard, drawing courage from his touch, sure of his protection.

  ‘She is mine and I want her back.’ Her father’s shout rang through the playhouse.

  Sarah swallowed, breath coming hard and quick, heartbeat hammering. Be brave, she told herself. Be strong. ‘I’m not coming back.’

  Her father took a step towards her but as one man, every player braced and readied, and Nick stepped forward to Will’s shoulder, speaking soft words in his ear, explaining. Will nodded as he understood, then addressed her father again.

  ‘Come, Master Stone.’ He gestured to the table and stools that were set close to the stage, pages of the play strewn across it and a basket of apples that someone had brought holding the sheets in place against any breeze. ‘Let us sit.’

  Stone breathed heavily from his exertion loudly through his mouth, and his eyes travelled over the assembled men, weighing his disadvantage. He was out of his depth here, the playhouse an unknown milieu. Perhaps he had thought he could triumph with bluster; if so he was sadly mistaken. This was Bankside, its inhabitants not easily cowed, and if he believed he could bully them as he bullied his family then he had misjudged his enemies. But still Sarah watched him with nervous eyes, and her heartbeat thrilled fast in her chest. Reluctantly, Stone crossed the yard toward the table and seated himself on one of the stools. Will beckoned to Sarah and Tom to come closer with a gesture of his head, and when Will had taken his seat, Nick settled himself on the remaining stool. The other players moved off a ways but their attention remained. Sarah was one of theirs and they would fight to keep her.

  She stood near to Nick’s shoulder, and he turned his head and lifted his eyes to her with a small smile of reassurance. Her father saw the exchange and half rose in his seat before he remembered he could not beat her into submission here amongst these men and lowered himself back down. Tom squeezed her hand.

  ‘Master Stone,’ Will began, ‘Master Tooley has agreed to take your daughter into service.’

  Stone blew out a hiss of air.

  ‘A twelve-month contract,’ Nick said. ‘I am in need of a servant.’

  ‘My daughter,’ her father breathed, ‘will never be a servant for the likes of you.’

  ‘She is young yet,’ Will countered, his voice calm and even, as though he held meetings such as this every day. ‘And it is usual, is it not, for girls her age to enter service for a while before their marriage years? My own daughter did so.’

  ‘She answers to me,’ Stone said. ‘And I say again she will not be contracted to service with a Bankside player. I have already lost my son to this den of sin, and I refuse to lose my daughter the same way.’

  Will sat back slightly and looked across to Nick, then briefly to Tom and Sarah, composing his response.

  Then he said, ‘You understand, of course, that we are the King’s Men? That Master Tooley is a servant to the King himself? A sharer in the Company?’

  ‘I know all of that.’ Her father waved his hand in dismissal. ‘And if the King chooses to sanction your evildoings, then he must look to his own soul. But the girl is mine by right and I will take her home and use her as I see fit.’

  Tom’s fingers tightened again on hers. It was easier to be brave with him beside her and with Nick’s protection too. She was moved by Will’s defence of her. ‘I will not come,’ she heard herself saying.

  ‘It is not your decision to make!’ Stone stood up again, shouting with impotent rage, outnumbered and friendless. The flesh on his jaw wobbled as he spoke, and spittle flew from his lips. She looked away, repulsed. ‘The law will be upheld. I will have my rights!’

  ‘Let her stay, Master Stone,’ Will advised. ‘What gain otherwise?’

  ‘She is my daughter. She owes me obedience.’

  ‘A year in service,’ Will said. ‘And then you may have her back.’ He flicked a quick glance to Sarah to stave off her objection. Reluctantly she held her peace, understanding the strategy and the need to win one battle at a time. ‘She is young yet,’ Will was saying.

  Her father was silent, seething, his fat hands writhing together on his lap. She could see the fury in the flush across his face and the grinding of his jaw – in his haste to reclaim her, he had miscalculated. Had he imagined he would just stride in and drag her home? He stared at her, at a loss to know what to do next – he would win nothing here today and he knew it.

  ‘I will have a contract drawn up,’ Will said in the silence, ‘and sent to your house.’

  Stone said nothing. Nick lifted a brief glance to Sarah, who smiled, relief rushing through her in waves. Her father got to his feet and gave a curt nod towards Will, pointedly ignoring the others, before he turned on his heel and strode with all the dignity he could muster across the yard and out of the door. Sarah turned to hug Tom and then wheeled back to face Will, who had risen to his feet with a weary smile.

  ‘Thank you, Master Shakespeare,’ she breathed. ‘I can’t thank you enough.’

  ‘I did it for your mother,’ he said. ‘I’ve hated the old bastard since the first day she married him.’ The smile widened. ‘So you are very welcome, Miss Stone.’ He dipped his head in a bow and walked away, back toward the stage, his mind already returning to the business of the play.

  She watched him ago, touched by his loyalty, then realised that Nick was at her side. She looked up and he was smiling.

  ‘Welcome to my household,’ he said. ‘It’s now official.’

  She returned the smile. ‘Thank you,’ she replied. ‘Thank you.’

  He dipped her a nod, then moved away from her, lightly taking the stairs back onto the stage to resume the rehearsal. Within minutes it was as if the scene with her father had never taken place and the only world that existed was the world of Macbeth. But all the emotion had wearied her, and carefully, her legs too weak to stand any more, she lowered herself onto one of the stools to watch and distract her mind from the soreness by the magic of the play.

  In the afternoon they played one of Will’s early comedies – The Taming of the Shrew. It was a play that Sarah hated, all her s
ympathy with Kate as she chafed against her social bonds. Though with Nick as Petruchio instead of Burbage, she found she hated it less: she could better imagine herself being tamed by Nick. But the play was unequivocal in its lesson – our roles in the world are defined by our birth, and happiness only comes with acceptance. Was that the truth of things, she wondered, or could happiness be found beyond such narrow strictures? Her dream had offered her a different path – she had defied her father and refused her fate. What future awaited her now?

  Then she remembered the vision in the shewstone and thought that after all, none of it mattered. Death would claim her soon, and the path in the dream was no more than a fleeting illusion of freedom. Depressed by the thought of it, she turned away from the stage, climbed wearily to the wardrobe upstairs, and set her mind to focus on her sewing.

  In the evening, she walked back to the house next to Nick, John trailing silently a few paces behind. They walked slowly, still mindful of the soreness of her legs, and he gave her his arm to hold. It was a cloudless night, clear and crisp. The moon was yet to rise but the stars’ glow brushed the blackness of the sky with light. Torches burned brightly in their sconces at the doors of the buildings they passed, the ground was packed hard and cold underfoot, and she felt like a lady walking out with her beau. They were talking of Macbeth.

  ‘Why does he allow her to persuade him?’ Sarah asked. ‘Why does he not refuse?’

  ‘He’s hungry for power. He wants to be king.’

  ‘But still … murder?’

  ‘She questions him as a man, pricks his pride. He loves her, so he needs to prove himself to her. And he believes it’s fated. The sisters have foretold it, so he must act to make it happen – it’s not his choice to make.’

  She said nothing, remembering her dream, the shewstone. The same conundrum – blind faith in the rightness of the spirits.

  ‘But would he still do it without her urging?’

  ‘Ah, who can say? She plays on his ambitions, his desires.’

  ‘The same as the witches do.’

  ‘Aye.’ He nodded in agreement. ‘And when the spirits foretell what you wish to be true, it’s tempting to believe them, even if you know the path can lead only to evil.’

  ‘And the Lady?’

  He shrugged. ‘She wants to be queen.’

  ‘John?’ She turned to address the boy behind them and they slowed, walking backwards for a few steps to face him. ‘What do you think?’

  He looked up, startled to be addressed. But then he said, ‘I think they are both bewitched, maddened by the weird sisters’ spells. They have lost their true natures, and their souls are blackened and corrupted.’ His voice was harsh and bitter, as though he spoke of real people he had once loved and lost.

  In the dim light she slid a glance to Nick. He met her look and she saw a mirror of her own concern.

  ‘It is a good play,’ Nick said. Then they turned forwards again and walked on and talked of other things.

  She slept before the fire, refusing outright the offer of Nick’s bed. ‘I am your servant now. It wouldn’t be right.’ And despite his pleading and the temptation a soft mattress offered her aching legs, she remained firm.

  ‘Then tomorrow we must clean out the attic,’ he insisted.

  She agreed and they retired early – for her sake, she guessed. But in spite of her tiredness, she could not sleep, lying restless and uncomfortable before the hearth, her mind turning on all that had passed and the knowledge of Nick in his bed in the room above, the scent of him in the quilt that was wrapped about her.

  She wondered where Tom was now. Drinking probably, or at sport with a whore. The image from her dream flicked across her thoughts and she brushed it away: to go down that road would be madness. The spirits could guide us, she thought, but our souls are our own to nurture or deny. To choose to couple with Tom would be akin to Macbeth’s decision to murder – a desire indulged that should have been denied. Whatever the spirits had promised, it was for her to decide her fate, and she could not take what they offered on such terms. Besides, she reflected, she had come so far already: her father and Simon rejected, and she a servant in Nick’s household. Surely her desire was almost in reach.

  But the memory of her brother’s touch still fed a craving inside her, tempting, dangerous, and forbidden. In these last few days she had begun to know her brother more. She had seen his lust for John, forbidden fruit just as she was, and she knew Tom wouldn’t scruple to follow his desire for the boy. There was a darkness in him she had never before suspected, and his pursuit of pleasure seemed more than a youthful exuberance: there was a need that drove him, a corrupting lust for knowledge of all things. What else would he do to fill that need? Corrupt his sister? Perhaps. He hadn’t refused the possibility, after all.

  The image passed through her mind once more and she let it linger this time, allowing the warmth to spread through her belly. Then she followed the dream away from her brother to the man who lay now upstairs, and the warmth flickered more brightly, heat between her legs. Briefly, she recalled that he still loved another, the woman at Court, but she pushed the thought away and held the image of him from the dream in her mind: his body strong and hard, his member erect. In her thoughts she stood before him as she had in the dream, naked, but without the dream to guide her she was hesitant, uncertain how to go on. She remembered he had touched her breast and she touched her own now, gently, as he had, caressing, imagining it was him.

  Then, carefully, hesitantly, a sense of her own sin suffusing her, she reached beneath the linen shift with her fingers and searched out the source of the heat that lay between her legs, fumbling gently to explore this unknown part of her body. The pleasure from her dream began to engulf her, the memory of the hard warmth of Tom’s member against her stomach, the touch of Nick’s hand on her breast. She quickened the movement of her fingers, more sure of her touch now, and the heat rippled through her in waves, building until it exploded into a light that consumed her.

  Afterwards, she lay still, silent, understanding for the first time the drive of desire and the pursuit of the release, the brief moment of satiety. So this was what Tom sought in the brothel and with John, even perhaps with her. Now she understood. Gazing up at the ceiling, hidden in the darkness, she thought of Nick’s body above it, so close, and another wave of lust passed through her. Smiling in the darkness with her fingers resting lightly on the part of her body she had no name for, she drifted finally into sleep.

  Chapter Twelve

  Come, You Spirits

  On Sunday there was no rehearsal and the household went to church. Sarah had not been to worship at St Saviour’s before; her only knowledge of the inside of it came from the night with the six-fingered child, though she had passed its dark stone walls often enough. The parish consisted of players and whores, drinkers and gamblers – the souls her Puritan father would cast out of his church as unbelieving sinners who defile the sanctity of worship. He had no time for a universal church; God’s love and salvation was reserved only for His elect. Immediately she loved it, delighted by the buzz of conversation and laughter all around them as they found a place to stand. It seemed more like a marketplace where people gathered to while away the time than a church, and it was a world away from the dismal seriousness of the worship she was used to. People seemed glad to be there, and there was a cheerfulness shared amongst them that was infectious.

  She spotted Jane and smiled and the girl sauntered across to join them, dropping a coy curtsey to Nick, who dipped his head in the briefest of bows of acknowledgement. Sarah watched, intrigued, and saw the frank appreciation pass across her master’s face.

  ‘Is your brother here?’ Jane asked her in a low voice, stepping to her side.

  ‘I haven’t seen him,’ she replied. ‘Does he usually come?’

  ‘Sometimes. Enough to avoid paying the fines.’ She smiled. ‘As do we all.’

  ‘But I love it here,’ Sarah laughed. ‘I’m used to a Puritan c
hurch …’ She trailed off. There was no need to explain any further.

  Jane cast a glance around the gathered congregation. ‘No Puritans here,’ she agreed with a smile.

  The minister arrived and took his place at the lectern, and the service began. She stepped back to rejoin her household, taking her place once again at Nick’s side and waiting for the hush to fall, but though the volume of the banter dipped a little, the talk continued. She was astonished, barely able to hear the service above the chatter.

  Tom arrived. He looked haggard, as though he had not slept, and he took his place to stand quietly beside her. John slid him a distrustful glance and moved away, stepping back and moving to stand on the other side of his master. She exchanged a brief look with her brother, questioning, but he made no answer, apparently straining to listen to the minister’s words.

  The sermon was brief and mostly unheard, and after a hymn that was more reminiscent of a drunken ballad at the alehouse than a song of worship, the congregation knelt on the hard stone floor to pray. For the first time, the church fell silent, and Sarah cast a look along the line beside her. Nick’s head was bowed, lips moving in prayer, and John knelt beside him, hands clutched together before his heart as though he were afraid his soul would escape. On her other side Tom leaned in close to her.

  ‘I’ve thought more about your dream,’ he said. ‘Come to the Grove at midnight and we’ll talk.’

  She nodded to show she understood. Then she lowered her own head and closed her eyes, though she could not bring herself to pray to a God who denied all she knew to be true, and who would demand her death as a witch in His name. But the endless childhood hours of Scripture had left their impression nonetheless, and she could not shake off a guilty taint of sin for the desires of her dream nor for the pleasure she had learned to give herself last night. Automatic words of confession stumbled through her mind, supplications for forgiveness she thought she had forgotten, but even as they ran across her thoughts, she was conscious of the two men either side of her, their masculinity, their scent and warmth stirring up desire. Confused, she shook her head against the uninvited phrases of confession in her thoughts and grasped her brother’s hand, waiting for the prayers to end as her knees grew sore on the flagstones. He squeezed her fingers gently, but the contact did nothing to reassure her.