Pru’s eyes locked with Aemilia’s as the wind swept Harry’s letter off the table. Meanwhile, Will, Olivia, and Giulietta were too engrossed in their happy chatter to notice. Prudence smiled to her mistress, as though to seal a pact.
IN THE COOL OF early evening, Will escorted their guests down into Verona to show them the sights while Aemilia sat in the loggia and read the scene he had penned. By killing Giulietta’s cousin, Romeo made himself a wanted man, an outlaw forced to flee Verona. Even with the aid of their sympathetic friar, the story had evolved so that it could only end in tragedy. The sole way Giulietta and Romeo could preserve their love was by dying together in a double suicide. Might we not have one tragedy?
Leaving the pages on the table, Aemilia stood at the rail of the loggia and looked down at the city glowing in the evening sun. Soon Will and their guests would be back. It was only twenty minutes to Verona by foot, down the cobbled cart track, perhaps slightly longer for the return up the steep hill. She would hear their laughter echoing through the olive trees before she saw them. Then it would be time to light the candles and watch the moon rise. Winifred and Prudence would bring out a simple supper and a jug of wine. As there was neither virginals nor lute in her new household, she would entertain her guests by singing madrigals. Giulietta might join in, their voices weaving in harmony.
Aemilia’s eyes caught sight of something tangled in the wisteria vines. Harry’s letter. She stooped to extricate it from the greenery and then held it in both her hands. It shamed her to think she could be tempted into such dishonesty, allowing Will’s letter to be lost, even though Prudence had offered the perfect excuse—blown away in the wind!
In the searing heat of midday, she had felt sick and had not been herself, but now with a clear head and a settled stomach, she would do what was right. How could she betray Will’s trust? Surely their love must be strong enough to withstand a letter scrawled in Harry’s careless hand.
She placed the letter atop Will’s newly written pages then carried the sheaf of papers upstairs and placed them in their lap desk.
With the shutters closed, their bedchamber was stifling and oppressively dark. Singing a lullaby under her breath for the tiny new life stirring inside her, Aemilia opened the shutters wide, allowing fresh air to pour into every corner.
AFTERWARD, AEMILIA’S HEART RESTED easy and unburdened. Even if their play lurched into tragedy, their love would endure, and in their long life together, they could write many more comedies ending in perfect bliss. Leaning back in her chair, she sipped watered wine while listening to Giulietta praise Verona’s silk market as though it were paradise on earth.
“Tomorrow we must go back and buy that apricot brocade with the silver threads!”
“We certainly won’t,” said her mother. “The price the vendor quoted was outrageous. Because we are visitors from Bassano, he thinks we are fools.”
“But he was so handsome,” Giulietta said. “I think I shall marry a Veronese silk merchant.”
“Say no more,” said Will. “We shall burn Giulietta and Romeo and instead write Giulietta and the Silk Vendor of Verona.”
The girl’s eyes widened. “If you write another romance with a heroine named Giulietta, she must fall in love with someone of the highest nobility.”
“Your imagination!” Her mother sighed. “You’ll probably marry a painter like your father.”
“Before I forget,” Aemilia said to Will, “Olivia brought a letter for you from Bassano. From the Earl of Southampton.”
She gave Harry his full title for Giulietta’s benefit. The girl sat bolt upright.
“An English Earl! Is he good-looking?”
“As handsome as he is young and dashing,” Will said, with a wink to Aemilia. “And as full of self-regard and hot wind.”
Aemilia laughed to hear Will’s gentle mockery of his friend. Her belly eased and warmed.
“Still, it will be amusing to see what he has to say,” said Will. “Perhaps he writes to rebuke me for not sending certain . . . artwork his way.”
Aemilia grinned to catch Will’s surreptitious reference to Harry’s fondness for pornography. Giulietta only looked mystified.
“Even when you two speak Italian,” the girl said, “it’s as if you have your own secret language just for each other.”
“Perhaps we do, indeed,” Aemilia said, smiling at Will.
“At that,” said Will, “I shall excuse myself.” He kissed her and whispered in her ear, “Don’t be too long, love.”
AEMILIA LINGERED A SHORT while to sing madrigals with Giulietta while Olivia listened. They sang a cappella, their only accompaniment the night birds and the wind in the trees. She thought she heard some pitiful creature howl in the darkness, but still she sang, never falling out of harmony. Moths fluttered around the candle flames. How she hated to see them burn like Icarus. Finally, out of pity for them, she blew out the candles. Tabitha appeared with a lantern to show Giulietta to her guest room.
“I will be up soon,” Olivia told her daughter.
When the girl had gone, Olivia took Aemilia’s hands. “It’s good to see you so happy. I only wish you had told me the truth from the beginning. Why would you ever wish to lie to me?”
“The truth?” Aemilia’s mind was a blank. Which of her many falsehoods had tripped her up this time? Had Olivia divined that her and Will’s marriage was a sham?
“I heard Enrico calling Will papa,” Olivia said. “You should have told us from the start that he’s your son’s father. We are your family, cara. You must speak the truth to us.”
“Forgive me,” Aemilia murmured.
She felt like an even worse liar for not daring to correct Olivia’s false assumption, which was far more pleasant and less complicated than the facts. That she had no business living with Will as his wife and bearing his child. If Olivia knew, would she shun her completely? Forbid her innocent daughter from coming near her?
Olivia hugged Aemilia. “I’m so relieved you’re finally married. Now everything shall turn out well for you, cara. God smiles upon true lovers.”
Warmth welled up in Aemilia’s heart. She imagined Will and herself as innamorati in Arcadia, laying garlands of thanksgiving upon the altar of Eros.
SHAFTS OF MOONLIGHT POURED through the windows to illuminate Aemilia’s path up the stairs. Her palm found their bedchamber door.
Back in Westminster, when she first married Alfonse while six months pregnant with Lord Hunsdon’s child, the midwife had warned her not to lie with her husband until six months after the baby was born. But Aemilia no longer believed in such prohibitions. No, she would make love with Will for as long as her body allowed her to do so. Her desire pulsed like a flame of pure-white heat.
Their chamber was lit by a single guttering candle throwing shadows on the walls. Will stood at the open window, his back to her.
“Such an enchanting moon,” she said, taking her place beside him, twining her arm around his. “Soon it will be full. You better not stare at it too long, love, or the servants shall murmur that you’re bewitched.”
Her gentle teasing brought no smile to his face. He only stared out into that night, his face immobile. His flesh felt as cold as marble to her touch.
“What is it, my love?” she asked.
She raised his chilly fingers to her lips and kissed them, but he seemed listless and numb, as though his soul had been stolen away. The moon bleached all color from his skin. Only when she touched his face did she feel his tears. But his eyes were frozen wide open. For a moment, he reminded her of a corpse. Even as she shoved that image from her mind, her chest seized up.
“Speak to me, love.”
“The beautiful boy,” he said faintly.
“Harry?” she asked. “How does he fare?”
Will only barked out a laugh that frightened her more than his tears.
She felt herself lurch, as though the floor could no longer support her. “Look at me, I beg you.”
When he finall
y turned to her, she thought she stood face-to-face with his effigy. Not the living man. In one hand, he clutched the letter. As she gazed at those folded pages, his hand began to shake as though he’d no more control of it than he had of the stars in the heavens. The letter fell to the floor.
What had Harry written to leave Will in such a state? Had Prudence been right—should she have simply allowed the cursed thing to float away on the wind?
“You have to tell me what happened.”
“I have no words.” He looked past her into the darkness. “No feeble words of mine could ever . . .”
He broke off into jagged weeping, covering his eyes with one hand. Though she held him in the circle of her arms, his heart banging against her ear, she couldn’t reach him.
“The letter,” she murmured. “May I read it?”
Uttering no protest, he stared at the moon as if to lose himself in that pale inconstant orb.
Kneeling on the floor, she picked up the two leaves of paper. The first page was of fine heavy stock and emblazoned with the Southampton coat of arms.
My dear friend,
Let not your heart despise me for passing on this news from your wife, though it possesses the most terrible weight a soul can bear. My thoughts abide with you. Please make use of my letter of credit should you wish to return to Stratford.
Ever your loving Harry
The heaviness Harry described now pressed down on her. So Anne Shakespeare, her beloved’s true and lawful wife, who could neither read nor write, had managed to send her straying husband a message so grave that it had humbled even Harry.
The second page was of much cheaper paper, the letter written by the curate of Holy Trinity Church in Stratford, who had taken illiterate Anne’s dictation. How humiliating, Aemilia thought, for Anne to be forced to channel her letter through a clergyman and then through Harry.
My dear husband,
Some months ago you wrote to us from far Italy. I can scarce picture such a place. I know not where you are now, so I send this letter in care of the Earl of Southampton and pray that it reaches your hand.
It is with a broken heart I must tell you that our son Hamnet has taken ill and died. He now lies buried in Holy Trinity churchyard. Your parents, and Hamnet and Judith Sadler, his godparents, attended the funeral in your stead.
Thank merciful Heaven our daughters Susanna and Judith are well but are sorely grieving their poor dead brother.
Your faithful wife Anne
Anne’s words, scrawled in the curate’s ungainly hand, left Aemilia drowning in shame. What have we done? She imagined the woman weeping at her son’s grave, and beside her an empty place where her husband should have stood. Will, had he only known, would have returned to Stratford with all speed. But Aemilia had lured him away to the far side of Europe and written sunny Italian comedies with him while his son lay dying.
“I am so, so sorry,” she began.
She wanted to say more but found she couldn’t go on. Her tongue had frozen. Will was right. No words existed to match this loss. While he had been living with her in their beautiful idyll, his only son had died and the funeral had gone on without him.
As she tried to hold Will, he was seized by a fit of silent weeping. The beautiful boy.
Will’s grief filled their chamber with his dead son.
IN THE MORNING AEMILIA awakened alone. She found Will sitting in the shadowiest corner of the loggia.
“My love,” she said.
Their guests had not yet come down, but Tabitha now appeared with Enrico. Upon seeing Will, the little boy launched himself at him.
“Papa, Papa!” Enrico hugged Will’s knees, begging to be lifted into his lap.
Her hand on her mouth, Aemilia watched Will tremble uncontrollably as he had done the night before when he could no longer even hold Anne’s letter. It seemed he could not bear the touch of those little hands. Tabitha was too dumbfounded to react as Enrico wailed in confusion, his cries piercing the morning stillness. Aemilia swooped down to take him away.
“Your papa is tired today,” she heard herself say in a too-bright voice. “You must let him rest. Shall we go see the donkeys?”
As Will walked off in the direction of the olive groves, a spell of dizziness forced Aemilia to sink onto the bench he had vacated. Black spots danced before her eyes while her son squirmed in her arms, still calling out for his papa.
“Cara, are you so sick in the morning that you can’t even smile?” Olivia’s face swam before her. “Why do you look so sad? It’s not good for the little babe you’re growing.”
Aemilia could hardly face her guests in their blameless good cheer. But Olivia was already taking charge, lifting the crying child from Aemilia’s lap, hefting him on her hip and covering him in kisses. She summoned Winifred to bring her mistress bread and warm milk with honey.
“What happened to Will?” Giulietta asked. “Why is he wandering about the groves at this hour?”
“He’s not himself,” Aemilia said. “The letter brought sad tidings from England. His beloved young kinsman has died.”
“How very sad!” Olivia’s eyes brimmed in sympathy. “Ah, then we must cut our visit short as not to burden him. Grief takes its own course. But don’t let him grieve too long, cara. Though losing a loved one is always terrible, his thoughts should be on you and the new baby.”
Aemilia was too choked to speak.
“A new life to replace a death.” Olivia laid a tender hand on Aemilia’s belly.
IN THE PRISTINE COOLNESS of the following morning, Aemilia bade farewell to her guests but not before lading their packhorses with casks of amarone and olive oil, a bushel of apricots, and a pot of honey.
“Give my love to Francesco and Leandro,” she told Olivia, who clasped her like a mother. Aemilia imagined trading places with Giulietta, becoming a blameless young girl with her whole life before her. Not the woman she had become, shackled with too many lies.
21
N THE FULL GLARE of the noontide sun, Aemilia found Will hacking at weeds in the kitchen garden with a fury that took her breath away. Clods of earth flew everywhere. A salamander’s skull landed at her feet. Caked in dirt and sweat, he reminded her of a grave digger.
What shall we do now? All the questions she burned to ask him stuck in her throat. In the face of his anguish, she became a tiptoeing shadow, terrified of saying or doing anything to worsen his pain. What hurt her most was how his grief made him turn away from her, not toward her. Why couldn’t he let her comfort him? Did he blame this entire conundrum on her? Was she the author of his tragedy?
As the heat rose in shimmering waves, she forced herself to speak. “Will you return to Stratford?” She braced herself for his answer.
“How can I go there now?” he asked her bitterly. “How can I ever face them again? I am fortune’s fool. To think I didn’t want to return until I had accomplished something. I was wandering the world while my son died.”
HE WAS SOUL SICK, her beloved. Grief was a fortress and inside those dank walls he now dwelled. She was locked outside, calling out to him in vain. Though they shared the same table and bed, he was lost to her, utterly irretrievable.
She bade herself be patient. As Olivia had said, grief took its own course, and she could hardly abandon him to his pain. But don’t let him grieve too long, cara. His thoughts should be on you and the new baby. In another five months, she would hold that child in her arms. Would his melancholy be healed by then? Would he be able to share her joy, fall in love with the new life they had created together?
AUGUST FLAMED LIKE a furnace, and Paolo muttered of drought. They hadn’t seen a drop of rain since June. The laborers and their children trudged back and forth carrying buckets from the spring to water the vines, but the spring threatened to run dry.
“Will this spoil the harvest?” Aemilia asked Paolo.
The grim lines set in the winegrower’s face gave her little cause for hope.
“If the spring dries up and t
here’s no rain, we’ll have to drag up water from the Adige,” he said, mopping the sweat from his face with the cloth she handed him. “But even if we break our backs hauling water up that slope, the grapes might be scorched.”
Aemilia squinted down at the baking valley where the river ran low in its banks.
“But still we have the olives, do we not?” she asked. “Olive trees require far less water than grapevines, so I understand.”
“If the drought is harsh enough, we will lose most of the olives as well. We must pray for rain.”
She nodded soberly and was about to excuse herself when Paolo gave her a long grave look. “We haven’t seen a drought like this in years, signora. It could ruin us.”
“What can we do?” She felt a kick inside, as though even her unborn child were succumbing to panic.
Paolo took off his dusty straw hat and lowered his voice to a whisper. “I beg you, signora, send your Prudenza back to Bassano. For her own safety if nothing else.”
The hot wind blew up dust that stung Aemilia’s eyes. “Why should my servant have to fear for her safety, Paolo?” But she sensed his answer even before he spoke.
“Already before the drought, people whispered that she was a strega. Now, when we must pray for our very survival, the neighbors will take justice into their own hands. I won’t be able to stop them and neither will you, signora.”
“Surely it takes more than gossip to try someone for witchcraft,” she said.
“There is no time to wait for a trial,” he said darkly. “If the drought lasts much longer, they will try to summon the rains by swimming the witch.”
The sweat dripping down Aemilia’s back ran cold.
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