“What afflictions, sister?” asked Master Vaughan.
Mistress Prowse sighed. “Brother, you know the Queen has grievously disappointed us. We looked to her for godly reform, but she has made shameful compromises.”
“Her compromises may not be as godly as some would wish, but they’re good for business,” Master Vaughan said, smiling.
Mistress Prowse shook her head and turned to Emilia. “My patroness, Lady Cumberland, a godly noblewoman, is coming here tomorrow to hear my book. Would you like to meet her?”
Emilia’s heart jumped. “Indeed I should.”
Next day when she arrived, she found Mistress Prowse propped up with pillows in a chair with armrests. They talked as they waited for the lady’s arrival.
“Lady Cumberland,” said Mistress Prowse, “is the daughter to the Earl of Bedford, who went into exile during the Papist Mary’s reign. She is most learned in medicines and herbs.”
“I grow medicinal herbs myself.”
“So did I, although my health will no longer permit me. I ministered to the community’s ills when I was doing the Lord’s work in Geneva.” A self-satisfied smile brushed Mistress Prowse’s lips. “We might also see Lady Pembroke today.”
Emilia’s heart beat faster. Lady Pembroke, formerly Mary Sidney, the golden lady who had swept into Court with her blue retinue. She was completing her brother Sir Phillip’s translation of the Psalms, left unfinished at his death. “Will she read her poetry?”
“She might.” Mistress Prowse shook her head. “I wish she would write more simply. Godly works should read plain and clear that all may understand. But she is a great lady, so I hold my peace.”
And then the ladies arrived—Margaret, Countess of Cumberland, brown hair in a widow’s peak, dark, slightly worried eyes, a firm mouth, wearing a traveling dress of simple, rich brown twill, and beside her Mary Sidney, Countess of Pembroke, taller than Emilia remembered, still golden-haired, though with twists of gray among the abundant, carefully arranged curls. They both greeted Mistress Prowse warmly, expressing concern for her health.
“My most gracious ladies,” Mistress Prowse said, “I am overwhelmed by your kindness in visiting me when I am, like old Ezekias, unable to rise and come to you in my sickness.” She indicated Emilia, by her side. “May I present my friend Mistress Emilia Bassano, who served the Countess of Kent, my Lady of Suffolk’s daughter.”
Emilia’s Court training overcame the butterflies in her stomach, and she curtseyed, addressing each lady in proper style. Lady Pembroke fixed Emilia with her level blue eyes. “I remember you from Court, Mistress Bassano. We passed a pleasant afternoon singing to your lute, as I recall.”
“Yes, Madam, I remember it with great pleasure,” Emilia said smoothly. “I have heard much praise of your poetry.”
“I’ve but continued the work of my brother.”
“Most of the translations of the Psalms are yours, I believe,” Lady Cumberland said. “And you also finished his Arcadia.”
Mary Sidney’s face colored a faint pink.
“Aye,” Lady Cumberland said. “We have still a struggle on our hands with the Papist influence spreading. Our friends did not die so the Pope could again set up in England.”
“If only her Majesty—” Mistress Prowse began.
“At least she has not married a Papist,” Lady Cumberland said. “Though she has not leaned as much toward godly ways as we hoped, she has done much good and has kept the country safe.”
“What would my Lady of Suffolk say if she could see England now?” Mistress Prowse asked, shaking her head.
“She would be glad to see our people reading and preaching the word of God and not being persecuted for it,” Lady Cumberland said.
A servant brought in wine and small cakes. They all sipped and nibbled, and then Mistress Prowse took up her book. She read with force despite her apparent frailty. When she finished, murmurs of approval went around the circle.
“Mistress Prowse, I believe you have improved upon Taffin’s original,” Mary Sidney said.
Mistress Prowse’s face broke into a hundred-creased smile.
A general discussion arose of other books and authors, which led to reminiscences about Suzan, the Countess of Kent, and her mother.
“You were in the household of Lady Kent, were you not, Mistress Bassano?” Lady Cumberland asked.
“I was fostered by her from the age of seven, my lady, until her marriage,” Emilia said.
“How pleased I am to have met someone who knew my Lady of Suffolk,” the lady said. “I was friends with Suzan, but did not know her mother. Like her, my father, the Duke of Bedford, went into exile during the reign of Queen Mary. Cardinal Gardiner hated him as much as the Duchess, and he spread a rumor that my father and Lady Suffolk had set up a printing press in a secret location in London to print and distribute seditious pamphlets. When my father heard, he laughed and said he would have if he’d thought of it.”
Emilia smiled. “Lady Suzan said her mother named a dog after Gardiner for the pleasure of saying, “Gardiner, heel!”
Mary Sidney raised her hand to hide what looked suspiciously like a giggle.
“That is so like her,” Lady Cumberland said. “Suzan has more restraint.”
“Where is Lady Suzan now, Madam?”
“She has returned to the Low Countries with her husband. Before she left, she said to me, ‘I have a mind to see the places where I spent my childhood. Mayhap I shall once more ride through the German forest where we lay in tents and read by oil lamps.’ Did she tell you stories of their travels?”
“Yes, and tales of magic from Germany and Europe,” Emilia said. “The girl who was made to sit in the chimney with the cinders while her wicked stepsisters went to the ball, and the swan princess, and the mermaiden who fell in love with the prince.”
“Suzan was ever one for tales,” Lady Cumberland said. She sighed. “But now it grows late, and we must not tire Mistress Prowse further.” She smiled at Emilia, a warm smile that transformed her face.
Beneath the warmth, however, she suddenly looked tired. Emilia, noticing how pale she was, the purple shadows under her eyes, asked, “If I may be bold to ask, Madam, are you well?”
“I am recovering from childbirth. I have a fine daughter, God be praised. We named her Anne. She looks like both my husband and myself, which delights me and somewhat mollifies him, for he was set on a boy.”
“Congratulations, Madam.”
“Have you children, Mistress Bassano?”
“No, Madam. I am yet unmarried.”
Lady Cumberland looked at Emilia with a calm gaze that seemed to see more than her elegant clothes and jewels. But all she said was, “Since you are interested in herbs and simples, would you like to come to Clerkenwell to see my garden?”
Emilia flushed with pleasure. “I would, my lady.”
“Come tomorrow. The weather, please God, will be fine.”
After the ladies had left, Emilia reviewed the afternoon in her mind. She had been in a real-life City of Ladies, treated kindly by Lady Cumberland, and invited to her house. And she had passed two hours and more without once thinking of either Will or Lord Hunsdon.
The next day, she went to Clerkenwell Green. In Lady Cumberland’s garden, the afternoon sun burned high overhead, glinting off leaves and stones. They walked on a gravel path edged with pink and yellow gillyflowers and blue gentians, and eglantine roses clustered heavy along trellises. Lime-tree fragrance filled the air, and bees hummed all around.
“I have not been anywhere so lovely outside the gardens at Greenwich,” Emilia said, inhaling the mingled scents.
“When I stayed at Greenwich, her Majesty let me have a small garden plot,” said Lady Cumberland. “I was in heaven. I am never so happy as when in a garden. Come see my simples!” She pulled Emilia into a small, enclosed herb garden. “Look!” she exclaimed, waving her hand. “My tiny kingdom.”
Emilia gazed admiringly at the rows of silvery rue
and wormwood, yellow-flowered chamomile, sage, wild thyme, marjoram, and grayish lavender with light purple blooms. A huge rosemary, gnarled and twisted, trailed its blue-starred, dark green spikes over the path.
“Just look at my rosemary!” said the Countess. “It was a gift from her Majesty. It started as a mere sprig from Greenwich.”
Emilia grasped some of the rough spikes and sniffed the pungent odor.
“I would so like to go to Cookham this summer,” said the Countess, stooping to pull a weed. “It is my favorite place on earth.”
“What is Cookham, Madam?”
“A country house in Berkshire with wonderful gardens. I have spent some of my happiest hours there. It belongs to the Crown and is held by my brother, who lets me go there whenever I like. But at present, I must remain here to tend to family affairs.” She broke a sprig of lavender and offered it to Emilia. “Wear this in your bosom, Mistress Bassano. It will ease your troubles.”
Emilia took the lavender and tucked it into her bodice.
The sun sank low as they talked, and long shadows stretched across the path.
“Let us sit a moment,” Lady Cumberland said. They sat on a bench under an arbor.
Emilia studied the fine lines that marked the peeress’s pale face. She herself has troubles, she thought. “Madam,” she ventured, “I find that when my mind is troubled, I write in my commonplace book. Writing clears my head and eases my heart.”
“Does it? I keep a commonplace book for quotations, but writing my own thoughts seems somehow immodest.”
“Oh, Madam,” Emilia said with fervor, “It is not immodest to write your thoughts, for have not saints and learned men done so? Your thoughts are as worthy as theirs. Write what you will, my lady. No other need see it.”
“You feel strongly, Mistress Bassano.”
Emilia felt her face flush. “Pardon my forwardness, Madam.”
“Oh, no cause!” Lady Cumberland exclaimed, putting a hand on Emilia’s arm. “You speak your mind. Women with minds of their own are hard to come by.”
“Lady Suffolk used to say that women had as good a right to their thoughts as men.”
Lady Cumberland gave a soft laugh. Then, voice brisk, she asked, “What plants would you like?”
Emilia looked at the star-like blue flowers of the great rosemary. “I should like some rosemary, Madam.”
“I’ll send you some cuttings tomorrow. Lavender as well?”
“You are generous, Madam. Thank you.”
“Hush, child,” said the peeress, her lips turning up in an impish smile. “You don’t thank someone for passing along plants.”
CHAPTER 10
Paul’s Churchyard
September-November 1591
Summer had ended, and crispness edged the air. Yellow leaves curled and fell to the ground in Emilia’s garden. Lady Cumberland’s lavender had shriveled, but the rosemary shrub remained strong. It seemed to draw in, darken, and bristle, saying, You won’t budge me, come cold and blow wind, I will stand green and rugged.
She received a note from Hunsdon and opened it with shaking hands. “I will com t- se y- tomorowe,” he wrote. “Mayhap w- maye dine together.”
He arrived at eleven. She had all waiting for dinner: a coney, a roast fowl, salad, a sweet with berries and cream. He seemed tired, and their conversation was awkward. After dinner, she played for him on the clavier. Then they went up to her chamber and made love.
As they were lying quietly, he said, “I know I am not what I was.”
“Oh, Master Carey, no . . .”
He gave a soft laugh deep in his throat. “Ah, my chuck. Don’t deny it.”
She felt sudden tears moisten her eyes.
He noticed. “Dry those tears.” He traced her cheek with his finger.
“Sir—”
“Hush, shh,” he whispered. He touched her lips. “If you still have a welcome for this old man, I will come to you, no questions asked.”
A few tears rose to her eyes, but she kept them from falling.
A week later, she went with Lucretia and Bianca to the Theater. When the Prologue stepped forward, her heart jumped. It was Will. As they left, a boy rushed up to her with a letter. She could hardly wait until she reached home to read it: “Mistress, I mst see y-. Say wher and when. Snd yr anser to th Theatr. Feare not, I will nt harme y-. I byt need speke w- y-.Yrs, WS.”
She pressed the page against her chest and took several deep gulps of air. Then she seized pen and ink and wrote beneath his words: “Mete me at Pauls tomorrow at noone. Yrs, EB.” She folded the letter, sealed it with a drop of wax, and handed it to Marco with instructions to hurry.
She paced the parlor, her joy bubbling, and she did not try to hold it down.
The bells of Paul’s rang as Emilia’s carriage pulled up by the bookstalls. Will did not see her until she was almost within arm’s reach. Then he looked up, and she rushed to him. They both started to speak and fell silent. He had freshly shaved all but a line of beard on his chin and his small mustache, and he smelled of rosewater and clean linen. He was holding a book.
“Songs and Sonnets by Sir Thomas Wyatt and the Earl of Surrey,” he said, “one of the few first editions that haven’t been read to pieces. For you.”
She whispered, “Thank you,” and pressed the book against her heart.
“Come, let’s walk.” He took her hand, nodding toward a grimy lad who poked his head out of the door. “Ned, I will return shortly. I must walk this gentlewoman to her carriage.”
They circled the edge of Paul’s Courtyard, passing the tall outdoor pulpit, bookstalls, and foodstalls, weaving their way among people, horses, and carts. They stopped under the cathedral porch.
“Emilia, I thought of you all summer. I wrote poems about you. You are in my dreams day and night.” He pressed her hand against his chest. She felt his rapid heartbeat through his doublet. “I pray, say you do not hate me.”
“Of course I don’t hate you.”
“You do not hate me?” He laughed. “I will sing to the skies over Paul’s, to the gulls and seabirds and grubby little sparrows that swoop about this place, that Mistress Bassano does not hate me. She does not, oh, no, she does not hate me.”
“You silly,” Emilia said.
“Not silly,” he said. “In love.” He pulled her to him and whispered in her ear, “Do you suppose young Robin Warbeck could meet me near Market Cross tomorrow and accompany me back to my lodgings?”
Emilia opened her mouth to say no. “Aye. At one of the clock at the Bear and Staff.”
That night when she slept, she dreamed of winter roses tumbling over her wall in crimson profusion.
Emilia pushed open the door of the Bear and Staff and stepped into the dark inn, heart pounding. She wore a new boy’s hat with a long goose feather and a scratchy wool doublet and hose. She felt almost ill with mingled fear and excitement as she pulled the hat lower over her face. Dust motes swam through the narrow rays of light that slipped past wooden shutters, covering deep windows set in thick stone walls. As her eyes adjusted, she could see a group of men in the back around a table, tankards and cups before them. Smoke rose from a pipe.
Will said he would be here at one. Why didn’t I tell Marco to wait with the carriage?
“Ah!” she gasped as a hand covered her mouth.
“Hush,” Will whispered. Aloud, he said, “Well met, friend Robin!” He released her, tweaking her hat. “Come and sit down.” He led the way to a table and sat, gazing at her. A slow smile spread over his face. “I didn’t believe you’d come.”
“The more fool me.”
“What should we mortals be but fools?”
“What would ye, masters?” said the innkeeper.
“Bring us some of your best Rhenish wine,” said Will. “And my young friend here wouldn’t say no to a couple dozen oysters, would you, Robin? With sauce and bread. And bring spoons.”
Emilia asked, “Must you ask for spoons?”
“They as
sume you bring your own,” Will said. “Same for knives.”
She heard one of the men in the back call in a clear voice, “Innkeeper, the reckoning!”
“Does ‘the reckoning’ mean the payment?” she asked.
“Aye. We must all pay for our pleasures, now or later.”
“That sounds like a warning. What must you pay for, Master Will?” She leaned forward, elbows on the table.
“I expect to be in your debt, my Robin—very much so.”
She felt her face flush as she leaned boldly forward. “If I were a woman, I would call in my debts from you at once.”
He raised an eyebrow. “What debts are those, young sirrah?”
She ticked them off on her fingers: “Item, one kiss; item, one embrace; item, another embrace, somewhat longer than the first; item: another kiss; item: several kisses more . . .” She broke off, heart thudding under her doublet and the binding cloths wound about her chest.
At that moment, the man with the pipe rose and walked toward them, goblet in hand.
“Master Shakespeare!” The voice was clear and high. Emilia pulled her hat lower and sat hunkered over, shoulders up and elbows wide.
Will cleared his throat. “Kit, how are you?”
“Excellent well,” said Kit Marlowe. “I am in Fortune’s hand, and her wheel is rising.”
“May it continue to rise,” Will said, “though is her hand your best place to rest?”
“I would do better to rest near to her heart?”
“Or closer?”
“I’ll leave her privates to you,” Marlowe said. “May I sit?” He slid onto the bench beside Will and set down his goblet. He gave Emilia a glance. His lips puckered in a smile, and one eyebrow went up. “I don’t believe we’ve met, young sir.”
“This is my friend, Master Robin Warbeck,” said Will. “Robin, Master Christopher Marlowe.”
“Call me Kit.” He extended his hand.
Emilia swallowed. “Hello, Master—Kit,” she said in as gruff a voice as she could muster. His hand felt thin and strong with nervous energy.
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