The Dark Lady's Mask

by Mary Sharratt

  “What do you mean?” Her voice shook in terror.

  “They will bind her right thumb to her left big toe, tie a rope around her waist, and throw her into the Adige. If she sinks, she is innocent and they will pull her out, by the grace of God, before she drowns. If she floats, it proves she’s a witch, signora.”

  The heat beat down on Aemilia’s head like an anvil. Swimming the witch. She had heard of such barbarities taking place in England, the usual outcome being death by drowning for the accused woman, but this was the first she’d heard of such a brutal act being used to bring rain during drought.

  When her father was nine years old, he and his brothers were driven out of Bassano because they were Jews. Now that she had finally arrived at what was meant to be her lasting refuge and home, might she, too, be banished because a mob of peasants believed her maid to be a witch? Paolo, of course, was only asking her to send Prudence away. But if the drought continued even after her maid’s absence, who might they blame then?

  “I will speak to you about this later,” she told Paolo.

  Hurrying up the path toward the cellars, she came upon Winifred hanging laundry on the bushes to dry.

  “Did I ask you to do the laundry?” Aemilia snapped, she who never raised her voice to her servants.

  Seeing Winifred’s face go white in the face of her temper, Aemilia lowered her head in contrition. “No more washing, please, until this drought ends.”

  “Mistress, pardon my saying so, but you look like death.” Winifred’s eyes probed hers. “Go inside now, if you please. A woman in your condition—”

  Aemilia held up her palm to cut Winifred short.

  “They are saying the darkest things about Prudence.” Her voice broke like a child’s. “Rain.” She closed her eyes, hardly believing her own words as they left her throat. “If indeed she has any . . . influence over such things, tell her we need rain.”

  IN THE CELLARS, AEMILIA tallied the casks of olive oil and wine they could sell. If worse came to worst, she could sell the smallholding, although that would sorely disappoint her family in Bassano. But what else was she to do—return to them a pauper with a babe in arms? There must be a way.

  The time had come to discuss this with Will. No matter how bleak his mood, they must speak. She had bowed to his grief, but the strained silence between them had lasted far too long. Even he had to recognize how dire things might become if they did not act to protect Prudence and salvage what they could of the harvest.

  AEMILIA FOUND WILL IN the dark cavern of their bedchamber, the shutters bolted against the sun and heat. He crouched on the floor with her emptied lap desk. Spread in neat piles around him were the plays.

  The plays. Could they be their salvation if the harvest failed? And did Will’s renewed interest in them mean that at last his melancholy was lifting? She hadn’t seen him pick up a quill since the day Anne’s letter arrived two months ago.

  “We should write something new,” she said, a warm rush in her heart.

  To her joy, he stood and turned to her. But his face was somber.

  “How can I go on writing your comedies when I’ve lost all my mirth?”

  “Then write poetry,” she said.

  If they sparred, so be it. At least he was speaking to her.

  “Oh, God,” he said. “How stale the world seems. And you speak of poetry.”

  His hostility left her scalded.

  “Then why, pray, did you empty the contents of our desk if not to think of writing?” Her hands on her hips, she was determined to keep him engaged, to not let him sink back into apathy. But something in him had already changed—she noted a new resolve in his eyes as he faced her squarely.

  “I must return to England,” he said.

  Seconds passed before Aemilia could speak. “So you’re going back to Stratford?” She forced herself to spill it out.

  Back to his lawful wife. How could she stand in his way of doing what was right by his family?

  “Aye, I shall visit Stratford to pay my respects to my son’s grave and see my daughters before death snatches them away.” His voice rang cold and distant. “But then I must return to London. God willing, I might see my work performed on the Southwark stage.”

  Her head pounded in bewilderment. So he wasn’t returning to Anne, after all, the prodigal husband making his amends. Then why leave her? She sensed something steely and determined rising in him, as though grief had withered his love and now what ruled him was restless ambition.

  “Where will you find the funds to rent the stage?” she asked him. “How shall you pay the players?”

  He said nothing, only glanced away from her.

  “You’re running back to Harry!” she cried, unable to disguise her spite.

  “Not to Harry.” His gaze was blistering. “To being my own master. Don’t you understand? My son is dead and I’m wasting my life here. If I’d wanted to live off a woman in some backwater, I would have stayed in Stratford.”

  Aemilia opened her mouth then closed it.

  In her stymied silence, he spoke. “I’m of little use to you here in the vineyard, but Paolo will be steadfast and your family in Bassano—”

  “Did you ever truly love me at all?” How she hated herself for sounding like a spurned mistress in a melodrama.

  “I did love you once.” He could not meet her eyes.

  “You certainly led me to believe so.”

  Before her anger could spiral out of control, she made herself take a deep breath. Perhaps he didn’t mean what he said. This heat was enough to turn any reasonable person into a fiend. Hadn’t she shouted at poor Winifred?

  Aemilia clasped Will’s hands and made herself speak from the tender depths of her heart. “My love, I am so sorry that you lost your Hamnet. Such a loss would madden any soul. But how can you turn against me?”

  She pressed his right palm to the swell of her belly.

  “What of our child?” she asked him. “You wanted this child.”

  She stared into the depths of his clouded hazel eyes that reminded her of English country hedgerows.

  His face seemed to soften. “The pleasures we shared were as lovely as Arcadia.”

  Her heart galloped in hope.

  “And just as unreal,” he said, blinking as though to hold back his tears. “A false paradise.”

  To think she had come up with every single excuse for him rather than face the truth that he no longer loved her. There was no more looking away.

  “You would abandon a pregnant woman,” Aemilia said. Had he not done so before?

  Will’s jaw began to tremble as though he were fighting his own yearning. But when at last he spoke, his voice was cool and measured.

  “I will send you money.”

  White-hot rage exploded inside her skull.

  “Those plays are ours!” Her voice tore out of her throat. “Whatever money they earn is not yours to dole out as you deem fit! Have you forgotten our agreement?”

  He backed away from her as though she had turned into a demon. Hell is empty, all the devils are up here.

  “Who do you think you are?” she demanded, throbbing in fury. “When I met you, you were a penniless nobody.”

  His face hardened. “And you thought I was yours for the taking. Your creature whom you could bind with a bottle of country wine, some potion brewed by your weird sisters.”

  His accusation left her too stunned to speak. Her hands clutching her mouth, she watched as he walked away, not even bothering to close the door behind him.

  AEMILIA’S ENTIRE STRENGTH DRAINED from her. She collapsed on the floor as though she’d no bones left in her body.

  To think he’d accused her of using witchcraft to ensnare him! Her thoughts raced in panic—what if it was true that Prudence meddled with spells and Aemilia had unwittingly shared some sort of potion with Will when she brought him the bottle of elderflower wine? If Will told anyone else of his suspicions, would she, too, be condemned as a strega? Tied up and ca
st into the Adige along with Prudence and left to drown? This was her punishment for daring to open her heart to a man.

  If Will’s passion for her had indeed been the mere fabrication of some enchantment, did that explain how his love for her could be so irrevocably shattered, his overpowering grief and regret rendering the spell void? How seamlessly love could twist into contempt. When Frate Lorenzo had joined them in their illusionary marriage, the friar said that true lovers could walk upon gossamer and yet not fall. But when their love turned bitter, she and Will had come crashing down to earth.

  This past year had taken her on an odyssey from England to her father’s boyhood home in Bassano and then to this new life in Verona. From trying to live as a man to surrendering to a man’s love, opening the barricades of her fortressed heart. To think it had come to such an inglorious end. She was pregnant and Will wanted rid of her, just like Lord Hunsdon before him.

  As Aemilia sobbed on the floor like the most wretched of souls, heavy footfalls sent the boards beneath her quivering. Had Will come to take it all back, beg her forgiveness? She lifted her head to see Winifred stooping over her. Her maid raised her up and cradled her, rocking and crooning while Aemilia wept until she thought her eyes would run dry.

  “Oh, my sweet lady.” Winifred was crying along with her. “I thought you had better sense than to take up with him. He left one wife behind. What made you think he wouldn’t leave you?”

  “And now I carry his child!”

  “If you wish it wasn’t so,” Winifred whispered, “our Prudence has a store of herbs.”

  “No,” Aemilia said. “I couldn’t do that.”

  If everything else had been taken from her, she would not sacrifice her unborn child, the flowering of the lost sweetness of her love.

  Winifred opened the shutters, allowing the cool air of dusk to waft into the stifling chamber.

  “Look, mistress. A new moon.”

  Neither of them made a move to light a candle or lamp, for that would only attract mosquitoes. Instead, they sat on the bed and contemplated the evening sky.

  “How shall I go on?” Aemilia rested her head on her maid’s massive shoulder. “Oh, Winifred, how?”

  Winifred smoothed her mistress’s rumpled hair. “You know you can’t stay here and suffer the things they’ll say about you once he’s gone and you’re left behind with a big belly. If you want my honest advice, we’d best return to England.”

  “What, go back to Alfonse?” Aemilia recoiled. “Bassano would be a far kinder refuge.”

  Even as she spoke, she asked herself how she could face Olivia again after telling her so many lies. She imagined the dear woman’s incredulous face. Cara, I thought I knew you, but I never knew you at all. Who are you?

  “But, mistress, there’s that horrible talk of our Prudence being a witch.” Fear gripped Winifred’s voice. “What if the rumors follow us to Bassano? In God’s name, we should flee Italy as quickly as we can.”

  A shiver rippled through both women as the word witch hung in the air.

  WHEN WILL DID NOT return, Winifred spent the night with her mistress, reluctant to leave her alone.

  Sleep eluded Aemilia. Her shift billowed in the breeze wafting through the window as she paced the chamber, setting the boards beneath her creaking and groaning. The wind scattered the pages of the plays across the floor like autumn leaves.

  “Sleep, mistress,” Winifred begged her. “At least lie down and close your eyes for a spell.”

  Aemilia stood at the window and stared out into the gloom. The moon had set hours ago and even the stars faded one by one.

  “If only things could go back to the way they were before. Perhaps I can talk some sense into him. When he comes back in the morning, he might be of a better mind, mightn’t he, Winifred?”

  Aemilia’s heart leapt in hope as she turned the golden ring Will had given her round and round on her finger.

  “Mistress mine, it’s morning already. Did you not just hear the lark?”

  Aemilia shook her head as her tears fell. “Surely that was the nightingale, not the lark.”

  The maid lumbered over to join her at the window. “You can little afford to be love’s fool any longer. If you’re set on having this babe, your thoughts should be on the child, not the man.”

  Miserable from lack of sleep, Aemilia stared at her reflection in her steel mirror and saw a woman with swollen red eyes, a nest of tangled hair, and a crumpled nightshift. Drooping with shame, she was the adulteress in Jacopo’s painting, condemned to be stoned. Yet Jacopo knelt before her and traced Hebrew letters in the dust at her feet. Judge not. Of all her Bassano kin, only Jacopo had truly understood her.

  At last the cold clarity gripped her. Here you are, pregnant and on the verge of abandonment. The stark truth pierced her like a bodkin. If Will was determined to leave her, she could do nothing to stop him.

  Setting down her mirror, she glanced across the bedchamber. Her eyes came to rest on her open lap desk and the written pages lying about the floor in wild disarray.

  “Winifred, bolt the chamber door! Quickly, before he returns!”

  Though her maid looked puzzled, she rushed to do her bidding while Aemilia scrambled to collect the pages. Frantically, she read over each leaf until, at last, the five plays she and Will had written together were accounted for and restored to their proper order. The comedy of the shrew. The tale of shipwrecked Viola. The merry romance of Beatrice and Benedick. The pastoral of Orlando and Rosalind, yet another heroine who disguised herself as a young man. And the unfinished Giulietta and Romeo. With trembling hands, Aemilia stacked them back inside her lap desk—hers!—and clutched it to her breast as though it were a chest of gold. And so it might prove to be.

  She could not prevent Will from forsaking her, but she could and would stop him from absconding with their plays and reaping the glory and profit from the work they had done together. Soon enough she would have two children to feed.

  Once more she turned to the window that framed the fragile morning sky. A cockerel’s crow shattered the stillness. She expected him to return at any moment in search of the plays.

  Aemilia placed her lap desk in her maid’s powerful arms. “Winifred, pray pack this along with our other things.” She spoke with a finality that surprised even herself. “We must away this very morning before any harm comes to Prudence. Let us return to England. I shan’t chase after Will. If he wants the plays so badly, he shall have to seek us out.”

  “Right you are, good lady.” Winifred beamed, as though delighted to see her mistress back in full possession of her senses.

  “But how shall I face Alfonse?” she asked, her spirits sinking at the thought of returning to her lawful husband in order to grant her unborn baby the veneer of respectability. “Pregnant with another man’s child?”

  Winifred cleared her throat. “If you recall, you were pregnant with another man’s child when he married you. With any luck, he’ll get used to it.”

  HER DECISION MADE, AEMILIA wasted no time. As soon as she had washed and dressed, she rushed off to tell Paolo.

  “I’ve taken your words to heart,” she said. “I shall leave with Prudence and her sisters today. But first you and I must go down into Verona to sell the wine in the cellar. Never fear—I shall leave enough funds with you to insure the laborers and servants have enough to tide them over should the harvest fail.”

  The worry lines on Paolo’s face eased into the first smile she had seen on him in days. “This is a wise decision, signora. Please know that you can place your faith in me. I have stewarded this property for your family for twenty years, and so shall I continue, even if you need to spend some months in the Casa dal Corno.”

  Paolo, of course, assumed that she was heading back to Bassano and that she would return to the vineyard—preferably without Prudence—once the drought had ended. She said nothing to correct his assumption.

  THAT BRIGHT MORNING UNFOLDED like a dream with Paolo and Antonio loading
the wine casks onto the wagon. They set off down the steep cobbled track toward the city with its churches and palazzi gleaming in the sun. When they arrived at the wine merchant’s, part of Aemilia stood outside herself, watching like a witness as she and Paolo haggled to get the best profit. The drought and predicted poor harvest were driving up the prices, with wine merchants scrabbling to buy up good amarone while they could still get it. At least this small mercy.

  Could Paolo see the difference in her, she pondered, as she weighed the sack of gold and silver in her hands. Could he tell from her puffy eyelids that she had spent the entire night waking and weeping? Had he heard from Lucetta that Will had not returned the night before, or did Paolo blame her distress on the rumors of witchcraft?

  Once they had returned to the villa, she was relieved to see that the Weir sisters had already saddled the mules and loaded the pack donkeys for the overland journey. After safely stowing her coins, Aemilia leapt into the saddle. Under her skirts she wore her riding boots.

  “Farewell, good Paolo. Be of good hope. Perhaps the harvest shan’t be as bad as they say.”

  Despite her sleepless night, she felt more alert than she had in months, her senses honed and blazing.

  Paolo looked troubled. “Where’s your husband? Is he not riding with you? Signora, you know it’s not safe for women to travel alone.”

  His words threw Aemilia off balance. Where was Will, indeed?

  Meanwhile, Tabitha was in tears, her eyes locked on her infatuated Antonio. Aemilia reckoned that the young man would have given anything to accompany his beloved, but Lucetta would have sooner disowned him than let him take up with a foreigner whose sister was a suspected strega. Tabitha and Antonio are the true star-crossed lovers, Aemilia concluded, opening her heart to their plight if only to distract herself from her own despair.

  But even Tabby and Antonio parted gazes at the sight of Will trudging down from the hills. His hair was disheveled, his clothing rumpled, as though he had spent the night wandering like a ghost. His eyes froze on Aemilia as she perched in the saddle about to ride away from him. Of course, she had expected him to appear any minute that morning, if only to demand to know what she’d done with the plays. Everything stood still as they stared at each other.