Shakespeare's Witch

by Samantha Grosser

  ‘Tell me the story,’ Will said as they walked, and Nick explained it as best as he could, though he kept his doubts to himself. He was unsure how the playwright would take it: the two men were not close and Nick found him a hard man to judge. But Will only listened, thoughtful, and said nothing till they reached the gates of the prison in the High Street. Mediaeval brick loomed above them, blackened with age and damp, and the thick wooden doors had begun to rot. Nick did not want to guess at the misery behind them. He turned toward his companion, whose face was grave as his eyes seemed to search the road for the words he needed.

  ‘Talk to Sarah if you can and find out what’s happened,’ Will directed. ‘Give the keeper money for bedding and food. I’m going to tell her mother. I’ll find you later.’

  Nick nodded and watched the other man go, the slim upright back disappearing quickly in the crowd. An old woman approached him, ragged and half-blind, hands held out in supplication, but he turned away from her, thoughts intent on Sarah. Raising his fist, he hammered on the door. It took time for someone to come, and when the door finally opened a slovenly man stood drunkenly before him. He looked the visitor up and down, making his judgements about how to treat him, how much coin to charge. Evidently, Nick passed the test, because the man lowered himself into an unsteady bow and stepped back to let him enter.

  ‘I wish to see Sarah Stone,’ Nick said, pressing a sixpence into the man’s filthy palm. ‘She was arrested this morning.’

  ‘Right you are, sir,’ the man replied, examining the coin before he yelled out a woman’s name. Then they stood just inside the door, waiting, as the porter nodded and swayed where he stood. Eventually, when Nick was beginning to think that no one would come after all, a middle-aged woman appeared. She stopped when she saw them, her arms folded across her chest, shrewd eyes narrowed under a tatty cap.

  ‘Sarah Stone,’ Nick repeated. He was beginning to lose his patience, eager to get this over with.

  The woman tilted her head to one side, considering. Nick held up pennies in his fingers, watched the light change in her eyes. She stepped forward and snatched at the money with bony hands but he did not let go. ‘Take me to her,’ he said. ‘And the coins are yours.’

  The woman shook her head. ‘No visitors.’

  ‘The money is yours,’ he coaxed. ‘And there is more, if you take me.’

  He could see the indecision, her eyes resting on the coins, her mouth working as she struggled with her greed. He held out his hand towards her as though he were tempting a reluctant horse with a carrot. Long seconds passed until finally she nodded and snatched the silver from his fingers.

  Then she led him into a courtyard that was filled with debris and filth, mud slimy underfoot. A whipping post stood next to a water trough, and he turned his face away from it to focus on the back of the woman as she led him through a low doorway and into a dimly lit passage. He followed her along, aware of a press of unseen humanity around him, disembodied voices echoing amid a miasma of abject misery. He swallowed, a bitter taste in his mouth, and the thought of Sarah here amongst this filth and roughness, this brutality, lit an anger in his gut it was hard to suppress. He wanted to rage and hit out, abuse this drab woman in front of him, but he only clamped his jaw tight, balled his fists and kept walking. Finally, they stopped at a door and the woman slowly sorted through her keys to find the right one while he balled and unballed his fists with impatience. When at last she opened it, he pushed past her roughly to get inside.

  The cell was less than three paces wide and almost dark, the only source of light a small opening high in one wall. The stench almost dropped him to his knees and he had to force down the reflex to retch. He stood by the door for a moment to compose himself, taking in the presence of the other women, who watched him with hopeless eyes. Sarah stood against the far wall, and even in the gloom he could see the heaving of her breath and the fear in her look.

  ‘Nick!’ she breathed when she realised it was him, and then she was in his arms, her face buried against his chest, her small body tight against him. Her hands were icy where they touched his neck, and he wrapped his arms around her, his lips against her hair, taking in the scent of her. With the touch of her he no longer cared about the truth of things. He loved her, whatever the cause, and the love was real and not to be denied.

  ‘Sarah, my love,’ he whispered, over and over. ‘Sarah.’

  After a time, she drew back from him a little, and when she raised her face to look at him her cheeks were wet.

  ‘Did they hurt you?’ he asked, fingers brushing at the tears.

  ‘He examined me for witch marks …’

  He nodded but could think of no words to say, and his mind was full of the image of her body and another man’s hands against the flawless skin, her humiliation. He tried to think if she had moles or birthmarks, anything a court could see as a Devil’s teat, but his recollection was of unmarked perfection, smooth and clear and soft.

  ‘Did he find anything …?’ A mark more than anything else could condemn her, and he held his breath for her answer.

  She shook her head.

  ‘Thank God,’ he murmured. ‘Thank God.’

  ‘The examination is on Friday,’ she said. ‘Will you come?’

  ‘Of course,’ he replied, finding his voice at last. ‘Of course.’

  ‘And Tom?’ she asked. ‘Have they taken Tom too?’

  ‘I haven’t seen him. I don’t know.’ He had not thought of Tom since leaving the playhouse, but he remembered John’s fear of him and the charges against him spitting from his lips. He wondered if John truly understood what he had started. ‘I’ll find him and I’ll bring you news if I can.’

  She gave him a small smile of thanks as the door scraped open behind him. The dishevelled woman stood in the doorway, keys rattling in her hand.

  ‘I must go,’ Nick whispered, his lips close to her ear, her cheek cold against his. ‘Keep your courage,’ he said.

  She dropped her head away from him, too sad to watch him leave, and, outside in the passage, when the door was once more locked between them, he gave a half-crown to the woman. ‘For food and blankets. Make sure she gets them.’

  The woman nodded, then turned to go, and he followed her once more along the dismal passage towards the brighter light beyond the prison wall.

  Tom was at the brothel when he heard the news of his sister’s arrest, a messenger sent from the playhouse to find him. He withdrew his hand from under Jane’s skirts and shoved her from her place on his lap, all levity forgotten, all thoughts of anything but Sarah sliding from his mind. Jane watched him and though he saw the jealousy and hurt across her features, he did not care. He had to find John and lure him out of his madness.

  Tossing the girl a coin for her time, he grabbed his doublet and made for the door, then halted in the lane outside, reorientating himself to the day. It was still afternoon, a warm drizzle in the air with the first hint of spring. A street seller stood across from the brothel door selling apples from a basket, and he crossed to her, picked out the largest and handed over a penny in exchange. Then he rubbed the fruit against his jacket, buffing the skin to a pleasing shine before he bit into it. The sweetness was welcome after the bitterness of ale, and he stood for a moment in the lane, chewing, considering where to begin his search for the boy.

  Deciding after a moment that the church would be his best bet, he lifted his eyes to the tower that loomed over Bankside in futile hope of spreading God’s message across the streets of sin around it, and set his footsteps towards it.

  John was there, as he’d expected, on his knees before the altar, hands clasped in desperate supplication. Tom paused a moment in the nave to quell his rage and his passion: his instinct was to beat the boy unconscious for all that he had done, and it took all his will to force his breathing to quieten and check the racing of his heart. It would do no good to give way to his anger – for Sarah’s sake he needed to be cunning. Taking a deep breath, forcing out all the
tension that was coiled inside him, he stepped forward and knelt beside the boy. John jumped in shock, swinging round with startled eyes.

  ‘What have you done?’ Tom whispered, careful to keep his voice soft and even, not to frighten John any further.

  ‘She is a witch,’ John replied, so low that Tom could barely hear him. ‘She cursed me and made me want you, forced me into evil.’

  ‘No one made you want me,’ Tom said.

  ‘I won’t be free until she dies.’

  Tom shook his head. How could he make him see his desires were his own?

  ‘The magistrate believed me,’ John said, his voice cracking as though he were hurt by Tom’s unbelief. ‘The physician too.’

  ‘You saw a physician?’

  ‘The magistrate had him examine me. There’s no doubt I was bewitched, he said. No doubt at all …’

  Tom drew in a deep breath, mind racing. A lunatic boy on his own might be denied, but a physician? This was ill news indeed. He cast his eyes skyward towards the vault of the church in a silent plea to Hecate. John saw the movement.

  ‘You pray?’ he whispered.

  Tom smiled. ‘Yes, John. I pray.’

  ‘And does God answer you?’

  Tom nodded, instinct guiding his answer. He searched John’s face, hoping for clues. The boy dropped his eyes away for a moment before lifting them once more towards the cross beyond the altar, appealing to the hanging Christ in his agony. His eyes were bright with tears.

  ‘He does not answer me,’ he murmured. ‘And I don’t know why.’

  Tom laid a gentle hand against John’s shoulder. ‘Perhaps he answers but you cannot hear him,’ he said.

  Turning fully to face Tom at last, John subsided into sobs and Tom drew him close, arms around him, holding him, comforting. He remembered the slight frame in his embrace in the night, the pleasure he had given and taken, and his limbs and the muscles in his jaw tightened with regret for the price that pleasure was costing now. He should have left the boy alone, he thought, should have sensed the fragile soul within. But Bankside was a rough-and-tumble place and the weak did not last long: you either hardened or you sank.

  When the sobs ran dry at last and Tom’s knees ached from kneeling on the cold stone, he coaxed the boy to his feet with reassuring words as though he were a child, and they stumbled from the church. With Tom’s arm still around John’s shoulders and his weight pressed close against him, they made their slow way home to Water Lane. When Joyce opened the door to them she let out a gasp of surprise, expecting to see her master, but she let them in and set out bread and a pie and ale on the table, and they sat and picked at it without appetite. Tom was impatient for Nick with news of his sister, and it was hard to resist the temptation to go out to find him. But there was a good chance of missing him between here and the prison, and he needed to stay with John and keep him sweet.

  The afternoon hours dragged. They spoke little, shifting after lunch to sit before the newly lit fire. John passed the afternoon staring sadly into the flames as Tom drifted in and out of a doze in the chair at the hearth, idly wondering what thoughts occupied John’s mind, if his fears and delusions still clawed at his sanity. But the boy seemed peaceful at least, and content enough in Tom’s company as the grey afternoon slowly turned to dark beyond the windows. Joyce came and went, crouching to stoke the fire, closing the curtains against the oncoming evening.

  It was almost dark before Nick’s footsteps sounded at last in the lane outside. Joyce, hovering all afternoon, was quick to get the door, and Nick started in surprise at the sight of the two men at his hearth, though only Tom was aware of it. He waited while Nick spoke hurriedly to Joyce, giving her the news before he sent her home for the day. Then he got up from his chair and stood with Nick at the fire. John paid them no attention.

  ‘How is she?’ he asked.

  ‘Afraid,’ Nick answered simply. ‘And alone. The magistrate found no witch marks.’ He lifted his gaze to Tom’s face and Tom couldn’t say if the words were an accusation. Then he said, ‘Will went to tell your mother.’

  Tom nodded and turned away. There was nothing more to be done except to bring all his charm to bear on John. It was going to be a long night.

  Chapter Seventeen

  The Night Has Been Unruly

  In the morning Nick woke early, the night still dark and the house quiet with sleep. He lay for a moment in the warmth, letting his mind drift, hoping to find answers in the lazy space between sleep and waking. Images from his dreams caught at his thoughts, ephemeral and hazy, and he let them go so that only the shadow of their darkness remained.

  Sitting up, he rubbed his face, yawned and stretched, trying to stir some energy into his limbs. Then, still weary, he swung his legs out of bed and got up. Downstairs he heard Joyce arrive and the noises of water being drawn, a fire being laid, and he wondered if finding Tom at the hearth had startled her, if inviting him to stay had been a mistake. They had talked late into the night, bound together by their fears for Sarah, but still Nick did not trust him, suspecting something dark beneath the surface and corruption in his soul. He dressed hurriedly in the cold, then padded downstairs in his stockings to begin the day.

  In the main chamber the fire was already burning, warmth seeping through the room. Tom was nowhere to be seen, no trace of him at all. Joyce appeared at the door with a tray and bid him good morning.

  ‘Did you see Tom this morning?’ he asked.

  ‘Tom?’ She looked puzzled, then shook her head. ‘No, I’ve seen no one but you this morning.’ She set the tray down and he sighed, took his place at the table and allowed her to serve him ale, and bread and cheese, which he ate without interest. Vaguely, his mind still sluggish, he wondered what had happened to Tom.

  By the hour to leave for the playhouse, John had still not appeared. Beginning to worry, Nick climbed the stairs to the boy’s chamber, averting his eyes from the stairs that led to Sarah’s attic room, refusing to think of where she slept now. Opening the door, he peered in. John was still sleeping, his pale face peaceful in slumber, limbs spread and relaxed. Relieved, he swallowed before his eyes lighted on the figure of Tom, who was dressed and seated on a stool at the window.

  ‘What are you doing in here?’ he hissed. ‘Come out!’

  John stirred with the voice and turned in the bed as Tom rose obediently to follow the older man out of the room and downstairs to the hall, which was empty now, the table cleared, a setting laid out neatly on the sideboard for when John should finally wake.

  ‘What in God’s name were you doing up there?’ Nick demanded.

  Tom let out a sigh of hesitation. Then he said, ‘I talked to him last night after you were abed. I could hear him moving about overhead, so I knew he wasn’t sleeping.’

  ‘Talked to him? Or buggered him?’

  Tom smiled. ‘Both, actually.’

  Nick lifted his face in silent appeal to the heavens. Tom’s nonchalance took his breath away. How could any man be so reckless? He was silent, unable to find words, his thoughts too hard to pin down.

  ‘I wanted him to recall his own desire,’ Tom said.

  ‘And did he?’

  Tom tilted his head. ‘Yes. And the pleasure of it.’

  Nick took a deep breath and turned away, leaning his hands on the mantelpiece and staring into the fire. Tom was silent, standing across the room, fingers resting lightly on the back of the chair, waiting. The pause lasted a long time and he heard Joyce in the passage outside, the quick, irregular footsteps, the swish of the broom. Finally, when the heat from the fire had become too great against his legs and belly, burning, he turned back towards the room. ‘And how will that help Sarah?’

  ‘He will know ’tis his own sinful nature,’ Tom said. ‘No spiced wine to blame.’

  ‘Don’t …’ Nick lifted a hand and shook his head, lips curling in disgust. Tom’s lechery knew no limits and Sarah’s fate was no more than a poor excuse to indulge it. ‘Can you not control yourself for on
e night?’

  Tom’s face closed in anger at the insult and Nick saw the flush that lit the pale cheekbones, blue eyes turning grey and cold in the light of his emotion. Dear God, Nick thought, but he was beautiful. He swung his own eyes away, confused by the sudden, unexpected sweep of attraction.

  Tom stepped forward, standing close. ‘Nick,’ he said, his voice soft and persuasive. ‘Nick.’ With a sigh Nick looked up, unable to resist. ‘I took pleasure last night, yes,’ Tom said softly. ‘I won’t deny it. But John is afraid of me again, filled with the desire I awaken in him and the sin of it, and that can only help us. ’Tis better he accuses me than her.’

  ‘But he hasn’t accused you. It is your sister that is under arrest.’ Tom’s reasoning made no sense to him, and he was still aware of Tom’s beauty and the tension that hovered between the two of them.

  ‘I know.’ Tom touched fingertips to Nick’s arm in a gesture of reassurance, and he flinched. The younger man lifted his hand away with care. ‘You must trust me.’

  Nick held Tom’s gaze then. ‘I do not trust you.’ His sense of the other man’s beauty began to diminish, but the memory of it lingered and only served to feed his mistrust. No wonder John had thought himself bewitched: against such power of seduction, he had never stood a chance.

  The church bells struck the hour. ‘We should be gone,’ Nick said. ‘I’ll wake John. I’ll see you at the playhouse.’

  Tom nodded and gave a curt bow of farewell. Then he turned and walked away to the door and Nick watched him leave, aware of the trail of disturbance Tom left behind him; the man possessed a charm that could win his way into most anyone’s bed, man or woman, and the sudden knowledge that even he, Nick, might not be immune sickened and disgusted him. Swallowing hard, he forced the feeling down and headed up the stairs to wake John.