Shakespeare's Witch

by Samantha Grosser

  The players were gathered on the stage, all of them, though no scene was being acted. Voices were hushed and tense and they could not make out the words. Nick slid a look towards her.

  ‘I should go down,’ he said. She nodded her agreement and followed after him.

  By the time she reached the yard he was already on the stage, and she approached it slowly, aware that something was wrong. Her senses prickled in warning and instinctively she sought to find Tom among the players, seeking his reassurance. She found him quickly and as soon as he saw her he jumped down and took her elbow in his hand, ushering her away from the gathering.

  ‘Go,’ he breathed. ‘Get out of here now.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’ll explain later. Just go …’ Then, ‘Go to the church. St Saviour’s. I’ll meet you there.’

  She handed him the sewing that was still in her hands and turned and fled as he had told her. The morning was bitter outside, a chill wind that blew straight off the river, but her cloak was still in the tiring house and the cold cut through the wool of her dress, biting at her skin beneath. It was hard to recall the warmth of the fire and Nick’s arms as she ran through the streets for the shelter of St Saviour’s, and the church tower loomed up solid and dark against the pallor of the sky behind it.

  Inside was warmer, out of the reach of the wind, but she still shivered, arms wrapped around herself as she wandered the church, searching for some warmth, waiting for her brother to come. A sense of foreboding weighed on her spirit, and the sombre church oppressed her: she could not pray to the spirits, couldn’t seek the guidance she needed. Tom had been so urgent and afraid when he sent her here, and she fought to piece together what she had seen, desperate to understand what had happened. But she could remember only her conversation with Nick and the sudden realisation that all the players were gathered, that something was wrong.

  Forcing her mind to see the stage again, she worked to place each man in the group. They had been gathered about the figure of John, she realised, in his nightgown as the Lady. The gown she had sewn, embroidered flowers at the neck and on the sleeves, a nightgown fit for a queen. But she could not find the words they spoke in her memory and she paced the church impatiently, waiting for Tom to come.

  At the playhouse Tom watched her go, making sure she was safe and away before he turned back to the scene on the stage. John was kneeling, hands clasped before in prayer, face wet with tears.

  ‘I am bewitched,’ he was wailing. ‘Forced to wickedness … poisoned … cursed …’

  Tom vaulted back onto the stage to join the others. Though instinct warned him to flee with his sister, he remained in spite of it, aware his escape might be construed as evidence of guilt. He hoped Sarah had left unseen, but in a quick glance around the assembled men, Nick caught his eye with a questioning look. Tom gave a slight tilt of his head, evasive, and turned his attention back to the kneeling boy in their midst.

  John was still mumbling prayers, sotto voce now, attention turned inwards. Nick was squatting next to him, a reassuring hand on his shoulder, trying to coax him up off his knees and away. John resisted, apparently oblivious to his master’s presence. Then, with a shout that startled them all, he screamed at Tom, pointing, spittle flying from his lips with the words.

  ‘Witch! Witch! It is no act – he is an agent of the Devil. Brother and sister together! She gave me potions that unravelled my mind. They wove their spells to bind me in their wickedness. They made me do it. I am undone, bewitched, condemned …’ And then he fell once more to mumbled prayer, face contorted with the agony of his spirit.

  All eyes turned to Tom, who shrugged, lifting his hands in a gesture of bafflement. But his heartbeat raced, his mouth was dry and for the first time in his life, he was truly afraid. For himself, but more for his sister.

  ‘His mind is undone,’ he managed to say. ‘The play has addled his wits – the witches, the madness of the Lady …’

  Several of the players nodded but no one said a word in his defence, and Nick’s gaze did not leave his face.

  ‘Where are you going?’ Nick’s hand was firm on Tom’s shoulder as he caught up with him in the street outside. Tom hadn’t heard the other man come up behind, and his sudden appearance set his own heart racing again, fear prickling over his skin.

  ‘I’m going to find Sarah,’ he said. ‘She’s at the church.’

  Nick gave him a look of puzzlement.

  ‘I sent her there, out of John’s way.’

  ‘And last night? What happened last night?’

  They walked to the river. It was high tide, the water murky and swirling, and the watermen in their wherries strained to keep their course in the current. Two whores beckoned from a brothel door but Nick waved them away with a gesture of his hand. The women shouted abuse for a moment, then turned toward a group of other men, merchants by the look of them, arriving at the dock with money to spend, climbing the steps from the river. Tom turned to face the other man and hesitated, unsure how much to tell, if the truth of his own forbidden lust might save them from the charge of witchcraft. It was a risk of course – sodomy could also lead a man to the gallows, but it carried less danger. And Nick was no Puritan: he had lived a long time on Bankside, where sodomy was only one of many perversions. Tom swallowed and the fear of before rose through him again. In the cold afternoon he was sweating, streams running down the crease of his spine, his mouth dry.

  ‘Last night …’ he began. God, he thought, how could he phrase it best? ‘Last night John and I …we fucked …’ He raised his hands in a gesture of helplessness and searched the face of his companion, desperate for his reaction, his fate, Sarah’s fate, dependent on it.

  ‘You and John?’

  There was no disgust at least, Tom thought. Nor even surprise. So he had suspected it and let them go to their bed together regardless, his own desire for Sarah stronger than his care for John.

  ‘Did you force him?’ Nick asked.

  ‘No,’ Tom answered quickly. ‘Of course not. That’s not my way … He liked it. He wanted it. And … that’s why he thinks he was witched.’

  ‘You tried before and he refused you.’

  Tom saw the other man piece it together and nodded.

  Nick turned away, jaw working with anger, shaking his head. ‘Dear God, Tom!’ he said then, swinging back. ‘What were you thinking?’

  ‘I … wanted him.’ Tom shrugged. ‘Same as you wanted Sarah. And he wanted it too. I swear I did nothing to coerce him, nothing but give him pleasure.’

  There was a silence and Nick sighed, jaw still tight with fury, eyes following the boats on the river. Some young gentlemen in a pleasure craft were shouting and waving at the whores on the bank, and one of the women lifted her skirts to entice him. In spite of himself Tom turned to Nick with an eyebrow raised and the two men exchanged a wry smile.

  ‘But we must scorch these accusations of witchcraft,’ Tom said. ‘Not only for me but for Sarah. You must tell John – I fear he doesn’t know what he’s saying, where it will lead.’

  Nick nodded. ‘I’ll do what I can, though it may already be too late – such things spread like wildfire. But for now keep away from him, and for God’s sake keep your cock in your breeches.’

  ‘And Sarah?’

  The actor hesitated, jaw still working, hands clenching and unclenching absently. Then he drew in a breath and turned his eyes to look hard at Tom.

  ‘She has nowhere else to go?’

  ‘Nowhere.’

  Nick nodded, still considering for a moment. Then he turned to head back to the playhouse, where John would be waiting for him, undoubtedly still kneeling in prayer, still pouring out his sinful soul to God. Tom watched him go, the strong figure striding along the bank, ignoring the calls of the whores, before he hurried towards the church to find his sister.

  At the playhouse, John was still distraught, tearful and jumping at shadows. Nick put an arm about his shoulders and led him to the upstairs gallery, away
from the others, where it was quiet and the sky was broad overhead.

  ‘Tell me what happened,’ Nick said.

  ‘I cannot,’ the boy wept. ‘I need to see a priest. I need to confess.’

  Nick tipped back his head in frustration and lifted his eyes to the heavens above him. Dear God, the boy was a Papist. That was all they needed. He said, ‘You cannot see a priest. There are no priests. If you need to confess anything, you will have to confess it to me.’

  John stared. ‘Why you?’ he asked.

  ‘Because I’m as close as you have to a father and no one else is going to help you.’

  ‘And you will see them hanged for witches? You will keep me safe?’

  ‘I will keep you safe,’ Nick promised, laying his hand on the boy’s arm. ‘But you must tell me all first.’

  ‘Do you not believe me?’

  ‘You have told me nothing. Only that they are witches. You have not told me why you think so or how they have bewitched you.’

  ‘She has bewitched you too. She took you to her bed, didn’t she? She cast her spells on you as well. The wine … there was something in the wine.’

  Nick gave a wry smile. ‘She needed no spells to get me to her bed, John.’ The wine had been unusual for sure and a half-doubt played on the edges of his thoughts, but he dismissed it at once: he had wanted her long before that. Tom was right – John’s wits had been undone by his own forbidden lusts, and the play had put witchcraft in the front of his mind.

  ‘But you would not know,’ John was saying. ‘The Devil’s kind are clever, Master Tooley—’

  ‘But you say you know a spell was cast on you.’

  ‘Because they enticed me to unnatural acts. Acts against God, against nature.’

  ‘They?’

  ‘She made the potion that made me fall, that stripped me of my senses. It was her doing – poisoning me as a gift for her brother. I would swear it.’

  The words sent a chill through Nick’s blood. He could understand the boy might believe that Tom had bewitched him, but why Sarah?

  ‘You coupled with Tom?’ He gave the words a casual tone.

  John dropped his head, made a furtive cross with his fingers above his breastbone. ‘Yes,’ he whispered. ‘And I must confess or I will burn for it.’

  ‘There are many who enjoy such things,’ Nick said gently. ‘God made us capable of pleasure – it does not mean you were bewitched.’

  John slid his eyes finally to meet those of his master. ‘But you don’t understand. God made me as I am to test me, to test my faith, and I failed. With Tom. Of all people. To fall with such a man, a servant of the Devil …’

  ‘You fell,’ Nick agreed. ‘But you failed God’s test by your own weakness. Not witchcraft. Not spells.’

  ‘You think God sent Tom to test me? You think he is a servant of God?’

  Nick fought to suppress a smile. It was hard to think of the dissolute Tom as a servant of God. ‘Perhaps,’ he said. ‘It is possible, after all. We can only be tested in adversity.’

  John was silent for a moment, mulling over the thought, and Nick waited, hoping he had said enough that John would leave off his claims of witchery. Then the boy brought his gaze to rest on Nick’s face and the light in his eyes glimmered with despair. Nick’s heart turned in pity.

  ‘I thought it was you,’ John whispered. ‘I thought it was you God had sent to test me. Not Tom …’

  Nick stared, thoughts groping stupidly to comprehend the boy’s meaning, reluctant to believe what he had heard and searching for another possibility. But there was none. He said, ‘You lusted after me?’

  ‘Not lust.’ John shook his head. ‘Never lust. Love …’ He trailed off, sliding his eyes away to stare down at the floor between his feet.

  Nick took a deep breath and rubbed at his temple with the fingers of one hand. He had never suspected, never thought. He trawled his memory, searching through the images, trying to recall something he should have noticed, a hint that he had missed. He had known the boy admired him and was eager to please, but he himself had once felt the same about Burbage: it was the natural regard of a boy for a more experienced man, for his master. But there had been nothing untoward he could remember, no indication that John felt anything more. There was only his reluctance at the brothel, and he had put that down to shyness.

  When John spoke again, it was a whisper that Nick had to lean in close to hear. ‘And she has taken you from me – you have eyes only for her now. She has willed it so.’

  Nick sat back and lifted his eyes to the open sky above them. The clouds hung low and heavy and dark, and the air was filled with a dampness that warned of rain to come. Dear God, he appealed again, how do I make this right? He turned once more to the boy.

  ‘Sarah and I …’ he began, stumbling and unable to find the words he needed. Then he said, ‘There is nothing between us but the natural regard of a man for a woman. She is pretty and I like her, and …’

  John’s gaze slunk towards him, lips tight, eyes dark, and in their light Nick stopped talking. ‘She has you in her thrall,’ John snarled, ‘and you cannot see her for what she is. She is a witch and between them they will destroy us both.’

  Frustrated now and beginning to lose his patience, Nick turned on the bench to face the boy, placing a firm hand on his arm. It was thin and frail beneath his palm and it was hard to imagine how Tom could lust after him. Sarah or no, John’s desires would never have borne any fruit. ‘You must not say such things.’

  John kept his head lowered.

  ‘Look at me,’ Nick commanded.

  Reluctantly the boy lifted his head, and the eyes that held Nick’s were brimful of distrust and doubt.

  ‘They are not witches. And if you say otherwise, they will die at the end of a noose.’

  ‘It is no more than they deserve,’ John spat, and Nick saw an ugliness in the boy he had never suspected. It lit an anger in him and he grasped at John’s arm hard, enjoying the wince of pain it brought.

  ‘And you?’ he demanded ‘Do you deserve such an end, for what you did with Tom? For your sinful desires – for him? For me? You have no right to judge them. What is it that Christ says – let him who is without sin throw the first stone?’

  With his words all the tension drained from the boy in a wave that left him slumped and miserable on the bench so that Nick felt like a bully. But he was afraid and confused, and desperation had made him willing to be cruel. He let go of John’s arm.

  ‘We all of us deserve to burn,’ John murmured. He lifted his eyes and cast them once around the playhouse. ‘This is a wicked place, a wicked life, and we are all of us sinners. Even you that I love. Even you. May God have pity on all our souls.’ Then he dropped to his knees in the cramped space between the benches, clasped his hands at his breast and began once more to mumble his confessions.

  Nick sat and watched him and did not know what to do. Word would have spread by now; the rumour of witchcraft lured all kinds to be witness. Gossip would be passing through the taverns and alehouses, the murmurs growing and changing all over Bankside, taking on a life of their own until they reached the ears of someone in authority who would come to arrest Tom and Sarah, their guilt already decided, their trial already heard in the whispers of the streets.

  He thought of Sarah, bound in prison, and he had to repress the urge to strike John across the ears, fingers twitching with his helplessness. But it would do no good – the words were said, the reports already exerting their power to harm. Words said could not be unsaid, and over time truth transforms: belief makes things untrue become true. And there was nothing he could do to stop it if he couldn’t make John retract his charge.

  ‘John,’ he tried again, placing a hand (gently this time) on the boy’s shoulder. ‘Sit up. Talk to me.’

  John prayed on, apparently oblivious.

  ‘John.’ His voice was firmer, sharper, and the mumbles ceased. ‘Sit up with me. Let us talk some more.’

  Unwillingly,
John pushed himself back onto the bench and sat beside his master, but his head remained bowed, eyes turned defiantly away.

  ‘You say you love me,’ Nick began. ‘Do you? Truly?’

  John nodded, but his face was still averted and Nick could not judge the reaction to his words.

  ‘Then as you love me, you will do this for me.’

  Slowly, John turned. ‘Do what?’

  ‘Take back these accusations.’

  The boy stared, an expression in his eyes that Nick couldn’t read. He pressed on. ‘If Sarah were to die because of me, because I love her, I would also die.’

  ‘You said you liked her,’ John replied.

  ‘Like her, love her …’

  ‘You wish to marry her?’

  ‘Aye,’ Nick said. ‘I do.’ He took a deep breath, finding an unexpected truth in the words. ‘I would make her my wife if I could.’

  John shook his head. ‘It is not a true love, Master Tooley. It is a love born of magic and spells she has woven to entrap you. Once she dies you will be free of it.’

  ‘You are just a boy, John,’ Nick said gently. ‘And you know very little of the ways of love. I have loved before and now I love again, and it is a love born in the heavens, a pure and godly love …’

  ‘If you marry her,’ John said, ‘if you say your vows before God and he does not strike her down, I will believe you. Then and only then.’

  ‘And if we handfast in church until the banns are called?’ Nick asked, desperate to buy some time. ‘If we exchange our promises before God? Then you will leave off your accusations?’

  Reluctantly John nodded.

  Nick swallowed. It was the best that he could do for now and he nodded his acceptance, though his heart still beat quick with fear for the lie the promise was based on.

  ‘Come,’ he said. ‘Let’s get you home.’

  Then they walked home in silence in the darkening afternoon, and the cold closed around them with the coming of the night.