“I can get a good price for them in the Exchange.”
“You’re not selling my pearls in the Exchange or anywhere else.” Emilia folded her arms.
“You’re my wife,” said Alfi. “Legally, those pearls are mine.”
“Master Carey gave them to me!”
“Your old paramour!” he snorted. “Very well, I’ll sell the carriage and horses.”
“Alfi, no! How will I get to market and church?”
“Take your choice: the carriage or the pearls.”
Emilia narrowed her eyes. “Take the pearls, then.” She walked out of the room.
She was sewing with Lucretia when a sudden cramp in her belly made her cry out.
“Are you well, Cousin?” Lucretia frowned.
Emilia shook her head. “Only my courses.”
Lucretia looked worried. “Shall I make you a tisane?”
“Aye,” Emilia started to smile, but another hard cramp made her double over. “I think I had better go lie down.”
Emilia’s courses were unusually painful and heavy, and she lay in bed most of the next day. Toward evening, Lucretia came to sit with her. “Cousin, I have heard of a doctor who is good with women’s ailments. Mistress Mountjoy, the headtyre seller at Silver and Monkwell Streets, told me of him. His name is Doctor Simon Forman.”
In Doctor Forman’s consulting room, books lined the ceiling-high shelves row on row. An astrolabe occupied a stand by the wall, showing the planets in their circles about the earth. Vials, beakers, and bottles filled shelves and tabletops. Bunches of herbs—rosemary and lavender, rue and wormwood—hung from the ceiling. A map loomed on the wall, showing a drawing of the world with England in the center and on the edges India, Virginia, the Azores, and—small and far away down in one corner—China. A skull glared down from a high shelf beside a stuffed owl. On a table under the window stood an inkwell and pen, penknife, blotters, and an elaborate timepiece, its works exposed behind its dial, its face showing a single hand that revolved to show the hour. Beside the clock, a notebook lay open. Emilia could see rows of tiny handwriting and drawings that looked like astrological charts.
She had not known what to expect when she arrived at the stone house beside a church near the wharf at Billingsgate. The air had smelled of fish and rot, and she had almost told Marco to turn the carriage around.
As she looked around the room, a cough sounded behind her. Whirling, she saw a short man in a long doctor’s robe tied at the waist with a cord. His unruly, wiry hair sprang out from his head, and his light hazel eyes, nearly amber like a cat’s, fixed her with an unsettling stare.
“Doctor Forman?”
“I am he.” The doctor stood still, hands folded in his sleeves.
“I am Emilia Lanyer, wife to Alfonso Lanyer, musician to the Queen.”
“You grace my humble lodgings, Mistress Lanyer.” He gestured. “Please sit. Tell how I may help you.”
“Doctor Forman, you were recommended to me as a physician who knows women’s complaints. I have painful cramps and heavy bleeding, more than normal for my courses.”
She tried to relax as he felt her belly through her clothes, palpating her sides and back, but his closeness felt unsettling. His breath held a hint of garlic and mint, and his body gave off a complex odor of spices and sweat.
He took her wrist and counted her pulse, then looked down her throat while depressing her tongue with a spoon. Finally, he drew back.
“You are having heavy courses, you say?” At her nod, he continued. “You were with child, but have miscarried. I will give you a potion for pain.” He went to a cabinet, unlocked it, and taking out a bottle, poured a small amount into a vial. He re-corked and replaced the bottle and locked the cabinet. “This powerful substance,” he said, holding up the potion, “is distilled from a plant of strong properties that grows in China. Take no more than a teaspoon in water or wine. The pain will subside soon. Come back in a week.”
Emilia took the vial and put it into the drawstring bag at her waist. “I have heard you are a learned astrologer. I would have a chart cast for me.”
“Where were you born? The date and hour?”
“I was born in Bishopsgate in early morning on January 26.”
The doctor scribbled. “What question would you have answer for?”
“My husband has gone on a voyage with the Earl of Essex in hopes of being knighted. I would like to know how he will speed and whether he will achieve his desire.” She paused. “He took a rope of pearls that belonged to me to pay his expenses. I am vexed with him.”
“Pearls?” The doctor’s bushy eyebrows raised. “Were they not his to take?”
“They were a gift to me from a friend.”
He looked interested. “From whom?”
Emilia hesitated. “A nobleman who loved me well.”
“May I know his name?”
“Lord Hunsdon, the Lord Chamberlain. He died last summer.” Emilia felt her eyelids prickle and fumbled for her handkerchief. The doctor held out a clean square of linen. She took it and wiped her eyes. “Forgive my tears.”
“It is good to unlock the heart.” The doctor’s voice was soft.
“No one likes to hear another’s sorrow.” Emilia lifted her head.
“We cannot deny sorrow. Whether or not we speak it aloud, it is here”—he placed his hand on his own chest—“in our hearts.” The gesture felt close, physical, intimate, as though he had opened his chest and showed her his own beating heart. She felt aware of his body under his loose robe.
Her tongue loosened; she talked more. She told about being the mistress of Lord Hunsdon, of her pregnancy and marriage, her son’s birth. She did not mention Will.
“Do you wish your husband to succeed in his adventure?”
She thought. “Yes, I would like for him to be knighted. I would like to return to Court.”
“You would be a lady.”
“Yes.” She raised her chin and gave him a defiant look.
He glanced at the clock. “When you return next week, I will cast your chart and tell you the results.”
They made an appointment, and she paid him.
“It was a pleasure to meet you, Mistress Lanyer,” he said at parting, his smile warm and intimate.
That night Emilia drank a few drops of the potion in a cup of warm, watered wine and fell into a deep sleep. In the morning, she struggled up out of dark, fantastic dreams as out of a well. She felt drowsy all the next day. The following night, she thought to take more of the potion and asked Min to bring it.
Min removed the cork, sniffed, and frowned. “Mistress, I wouldn’t take this stuff. It has a demon. I once served a lady that took it for megrims. When she stopped, she fell to shaking and crying something awful. They had to tie her to the bed till the demon let go of her. If I was you, I’d have no truck with it.”
“Doctor Forman wouldn’t give me anything harmful.”
Min frowned. “He may be learned, but is he a good man?”
“Just give it to me tonight.”
Again she slept hard and had strange dreams. Although she had no more pain, she took the potion more and more often to help her sleep.
Alfi left on June 12 for Plymouth to sail with Essex to the Azores. The night before he departed, he said, “Em, I don’t want to leave you with anger between us. Wish me godspeed?”
“I do, Alfi. I will miss you.” She kissed him.
He boasted, “I shall return with a knighthood and riches in a sack!”
She returned to Doctor Foreman’s stone house by the wharf in Billingsgate, and he presented her with her own astrological chart, covered with minute handwriting, circles, and triangles.
“Aquarius, the Water Bearer, is your Sun Sign,” he said. “You are a visionary, far-seeing. But your moon is in Taurus, the Bull, who puts your feet firmly on the ground. You are practical and capable. Yet you have a great love of luxury: fine clothing, good food, and wine.” He paused. “Taurus is also the sign of V
enus. You are fond of lovemaking and skilled in the arts of love.” His odd amber eyes looked into Emilia’s, and she felt her face flush. “Capricorn is your Ascendant, making you stubborn, crafty, and careful with money.”
Emilia laughed and shook her head.
“You go your own way and follow your own path. You are neither obedient nor compliant. You are loyal, desire justice, and hate unfairness. You have had much trouble and will have more, but your spirit will remain undefeated.”
Emilia laughed. “Sir, I know not what to say.” She laughed again, half embarrassed, half excited. “But will my husband speed well on his voyage and be knighted?”
“When and where was he born?”
She told him, and he wrote in his notebook.
“I will ask the stars and tell you on your next visit. We are out of time, and I must ask for my payment.”
The amount was higher than she expected. When she had paid it, Dr. Forman stood and took her hand, looking into her eyes. “I hope to see you again, my daughter.”
As she was driving away from the stone house, she saw an elegant carriage pull up. A lady descended, thickly veiled. Her eyes met Emilia’s, and despite the veil, Emilia felt a chill at their hostility.
September 1597
The summer passed, and in September, Emilia received news that Alfi’s ship was homeward bound with no treasure. A Spanish carrack had been sailing from the New World, but Essex’s ships did not intercept it soon enough, and the Spanish had burned it rather than let its cargo fall into English hands.
Emilia went again to Doctor Forman.
“Mistress Lanyer, you are more lovely than ever.” He grasped her hands.
“Did you cast my charts?”
He opened his notebook and, peering at the tiny writing, symbols, circles, and triangles, read, “Your husband shall speed well and obtain his knighthood. And you shall be a lady or attain some greater dignity.”
Lady Lanyer, wife to Sir Alfonso. I can go to Court and belong.
“You may rise two degrees in rank, but not by your husband. You will have good fortune, but your husband will obtain his knighthood with difficulty and will not live two years after his return.”
She sat up in alarm. “What? Are you sure?”
“As the moon draws up the seas in their watery tides and women’s courses are drawn with them, the stars shed their influence upon the earth. They incline us toward a certain path, but do not compel us to follow it.”
“So he will be in danger,” she said, grasping at hope, “but may escape unharmed?”
“Even so.”
“What can I do to keep him safe?” She clenched her fists.
Doctor Forman paused. When he spoke, his voice was hushed and deep. “Mistress Lanyer, those who dare may venture into unknown realms and make—or unmake—the future.”
The hair on her head prickled. “What do you mean?”
“Some can summon the dwellers in the elements that are sometimes called spirits.”
“Spirits?” she whispered in dread and excitement.
“Are you willing?”
She hesitated. “Yes,” she whispered.
“Then come.” He rose, took a candle from the table, lit it at the fireplace, then turned and extended his hand.
“Now?”
“Are you afraid?” His voice challenged her.
She shook her head and took his hand.
They went through the curtained door, along a dark corridor, and down a narrow flight of stone steps. The candle flickered, drawing fantastic shapes on the moisture-dripping walls.
“Doctor, where are we going?” Emilia touched the wall and hastily drew her hand away from the slime-covered stone.
“The vault of the old church is beneath the water’s level. There I have my laboratory.”
They stooped to pass under a stone archway and stopped before a low door with metal hasps and locks. The doctor took out a key and unlocked the door. It swung inward. Emilia hesitated. The doctor stepped inside, and she followed him.
The room was dark as black velvet. Emilia felt a moment’s panic. But one light, and then another, flared up as the doctor lit candles in sconces on the walls and candelabras about the room. Soon flickering, darting tongues of light surrounded them.
“Oh!” She looked around. Curtains of dark cloth covered the walls. Charts covered with astrological symbols were piled about. A cabinet with many drawers and doors stood against one wall. On a table lay several waxen images, one a crude likeness of a naked man with his organ of generation prominently carved, another of a woman, also naked. Other figures had faces that looked modeled to resemble actual people, with real hair glued on their heads. A copper mold sat on the table, and, next to it, a leaden shape like a man and woman in the act of copulation. Other objects glinted dimly in the flickering light.
She glanced at the floor and jumped back, for a circle had been drawn there, and inside it a five-pointed star. Symbols and words were scrawled around the edges and between the points. Some she recognized as Latin and Greek, while others, swirling and looping, traced an unknown language. In Marlowe’s play, Doctor Faustus had drawn such designs on his study’s floor, then stood inside the circle and conjured the devil.
She tried to keep her voice light. “Do you intend to conjure the devil, Doctor Forman?”
“I call both angels and demons. My art comes from hidden wisdom from Neoplatonism, the Kabbalah, ancient Egypt. The early Church fathers knew of this secret tradition. I do nothing unlawful, no matter what hot gospellers and reformers say.”
She twisted her hands together and glanced about at the charts, the black curtains, the wax figures. One seemed to move, and she gave an involuntary gasp.
“Do you fear, Mistress?” asked the doctor. “We can go back upstairs if you wish.”
Emilia knew the church condemned sorcery. But it also condemned the Jews. Lady Suzan’s mother had been persecuted by a Papist cardinal, and now Papists heard masses in secret while their priests died at Tyburn. Who knew what was right?
She drew herself up. “Doctor Forman, I am resolved.”
He nodded, his face thrown into sharp relief by the candlelight. “First, we must make a charm to protect your husband.” He took a wax figure from the table with prominent male genitalia. “Bring me some of his hairs and nail clippings and a piece from an article of his clothing.” His fingers quickly worked a rough semblance of a face into the wax. “Would you say his nose looks like this?”
“It’s longer.”
Doctor Forman modeled a longer nose. “We will finish when you bring the materials.” He stepped closer. “Do you swear to keep secret?”
She nodded. “Yes.”
He took some ash from a dish on the table and with his thumb smudged her forehead, then her breast above the neckline of her bodice. He muttered under his breath and set down the dish. He smiled. “Now you are in truth my daughter.” He leaned over and kissed her lightly on the lips. “We are joined in the sacred mysteries.” She did not move when his hand brushed her breast. “Go now,” he murmured.
At home, Emilia pulled some hairs from Alfi’s comb, cut a square of cloth from one of his old shirts, and brought them on her next visit. Doctor Forman pressed the hairs into the soft wax of the figure’s head and tied the piece of cloth around it. It looked like a child’s poppet. He threw some powder into a dish and swirled his hands over it while murmuring words.
Suddenly the powder burst into flame. Emilia jumped back.
The doctor moved his hands rapidly over the dish, his lips moving. When the flames died down, he took the poppet and moved a candle around it. He dipped his hand into a bowl of water and sprinkled the doll, then sprinkled it with earth from another bowl. He held it aloft and turned it slowly around, still muttering, then gently set the doll down. “The spirits and the four elements have been enjoined to protect him.”
She stared at the poppet. Does it look different? Does a smile hover around the corners of its mo
uth? A trick of the light, no more.
“Now we wait for his safe return,” said Doctor Forman. He smiled, his amber eyes looking into hers. “My daughter, soon you will have him in your arms.”
Alfi returned at the end of October, sunburnt and weathered. He had been made a captain, though without wealth or knighthood. He was a new Alfi, crafty and bold, a man who drank with his friends and talked of riggings and spars, battles and brawls, Spanish and English women, and—increasingly—politics. One night, he returned home late with a bloody handkerchief wrapped around his head.
“’Twas nothing,” he muttered. “A bit o’ head-cracking behind a tavern in Shoreditch.”
In March Emilia felt the usual signs of pregnancy: morning nausea, thickening of her waist, a sudden craving for odd flavors such as apricocks or olives. Alfi’s coldness cracked when she told him, and he placed his hands around her middle and kissed her. “This one will be yours and mine.”
Her eyes ached now when she read, for the rooms were dark and shadowy, lit by dim tallow candles on the walls and tables. A single wax candle, shedding its expensive light, stood in a candlestick by her side.
Homebound, she relied on the Bassanos for news of Court. They brought word of growing unease about the Queen’s health and what it meant to the kingdom. King James of Scotland would succeed Elizabeth, everyone believed, but it was treason to even speak of the succession. Rumors abounded about the Earl of Essex. He could do no right in her Majesty’s eyes. When Spain tried to attack England’s coast, a storm prevented them from landing. But her Majesty raged at Essex for not being there and awarded the Lord Admiral the earldom of Nottingham.
Alfi would hear no word of criticism against the General, as he called Essex. “Why can’t she see his worth?” He paced the floor. “The General says we will have to fight Spain sooner or later, so why should we not strike first?”
Augustine threw him a stern look. “It is not for us to decide, Cousin.”
“Pah!” Alfi snorted and left the room.
The summer drew on, long and hot. Alfi, in a temporary good mood, brought Emilia the treats she craved: apricocks, pears, and figs—dark, fresh, and ripe, pink on the inside, flesh firm, with tiny seeds like teeth.
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