Love's Will

by Meredith Whitford

  “Harry can be kind,” William said cruelly, then threw her his sodden handkerchief. “Oh, blow your nose, woman. Don’t snivel at me. I was unfair. But oh Jesus, Kit. Christopher Marlowe. Dead. That golden voice silenced forever. My friend gone.”

  “Mine too.” Anne blew her nose, then with distaste put the handkerchief aside and fetched out two clean ones. “Here.”

  “Thank you.”

  Wearily Anne turned aside and began to undress for the night. “Will you come to bed? If you have to start back early tomorrow you should get some sleep.”

  “I won’t sleep.” But he took off his clothes and climbed into the bed. It was a hot night and they lay naked, only a sheet over them. Almost crying again Anne thought how, so few hours before, she had looked forward to this moment when they would go to bed and make sweet, languorous summer love. Or William would explain that because of Harry there would be no more lovemaking with her. He would have told her kindly, with all the love he could find. Not with anger and contempt.

  She put out the candle. They lay in silence. Each knew the other was still awake, but neither wanted to be the first to speak. After half an hour by the chime of the town clock, William’s hand slid across the bed and took hers.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I know it wasn’t spite. That was grief talking. And shock. I think Kit half expected something to happen, Anne. He said in London, the last time I saw him, that he was perhaps in danger. Said if I heard of his death I wasn’t to believe it unless I’d viewed his body for myself! So perhaps...”

  “But Lord Southampton said in his letter there had been an inquest. A crowner’s court.”

  “Proves nothing. If Kit was as deep in secret matters as he sometimes said, what easier for the people concerned to fake a death, give false evidence? Harry’s letter said Frizer was there at that tavern, and Poley; two nasty little pieces of work, deep in spying. Or,” the febrile hope left his voice, “perhaps that’s it. They did it. Kit was assassinated. To stop his mouth. To fake up a case against someone else.” William turned on his side, towards Anne. “I told him that if he needed money to leave England I would provide it. He refused. Perhaps I could have helped him more. Done something.”

  “He knew you would have, had he needed it.”

  William’s hand reached out blindly and touched Anne’s stomach. He rested it there. “Kit asked me if I loved Harry. When I said yes, he said, ‘And what of Anne in all this?’ He said he envied me for having you. He liked you.”

  “Was he ever your lover?”

  “No,” William said on the ghost of a laugh. “No. Although he asked. He was Harry’s lover.”

  “Ah.” The grunt of surprise was forced out of Anne. In this night time, emotion-stripped honesty she could ask, “Did that make you jealous?”

  “Yes, Anne, it did. I’ve learnt what jealousy is.”

  “I could have told you.”

  “Yes.”

  “And did you take that lovely boy to your bed? Was he your lover?”

  “Yes. I’ve hurt you, haven’t I?”

  “Yes. But I was complicit. I spent the money he gave you.”

  “The money he gave me for plays and poems. Not quite immoral earnings.”

  A little time went past before Anne asked, oddly urgent, “What do you do with Harry? What do men do together? Do you take him like a woman? Does he take you like that? Do you hold each other and kiss? Is it better? Better than with a woman?”

  “It’s not like that. It’s loving caresses and kisses. Sometimes more. Not like with a woman. Not better. Anne. I love you. You’re my wife.”

  “But not beautiful. Not golden and blue-eyed and entrancing. Not clever, not rich, not educated. Not a man. Not young.”

  “None of those things,” said William, “but a pleasing woman and fiery, and my wife.”

  “And you are my husband. I love you and always will. Unless you wear out my love by giving your love to others. Harry is for the moment. We are bound, you and I.”

  “I come home to you, always.”

  “And with that I must be content?”

  “Content? More than that. Because I come home out of love. For you. Yes, Harry’s for the moment, and I cannot deny that I love him. But I love you too, and you are forever.”

  “Yet you thought I didn’t tell you of Kit’s death out of spite and jealousy.”

  “I know you better than that.”

  “I hope so. When we married we said we would always be friends and partners. Yet often I feel that if your heart, let’s say your love, were, say, London, then I’d live on its outskirts. Or a hundred miles away. Or, perhaps I feel less like your wife than like a mistress you keep hidden away for the occasional visit.”

  “Anne, I repeat: you are my wife, my friend, my partner. I do love you. Let’s be happy with that.”

  “Yes. It’s all we have.”

  They lay holding each other and both wept a little for Kit Marlowe, for what couldn’t be mended, for what they had, precious for all its imperfections.

  Part Five

  1594 – 1596

  1.

  William was an accustomed guest at Southampton House. The servants greeted him warmly and bowed him towards the great salon. He could hear music from within, a boy singing. He stepped in quietly, standing behind a knot of men just inside the doors.

  There were perhaps two-score people in the room, women as well as men for this was one of Harry’s regular musical evenings. He was at the far side of the room, sitting beside Essex. They were both intent on the singer. A servant went by with a tray of wine and, taking a cup, William moved into the space left by the man’s passing so he could see the singer.

  Not a boy. A woman. Emphatically a woman, for the first thing he saw was a pair of splendid breasts exposed nearly to the nipples, spilling down onto the lute she played. She had an unusual voice, pure and true, husky, with the timbre you sometimes heard in a just-broken boy’s. She was singing an old country air, a hackneyed, sentimental piece that would usually have made this sophisticated audience scoff, but she had set it in a minor key and changed the tempo so that it became the very distillation of heartbreak and lost youth. William saw one or two women dabbing surreptitiously at their eyes.

  The song ended to cries of “Brava!” and “Encore!” The woman tuned her lute, thinking, then with a quick nod struck up another tune. William stared in disbelief, for this was the filthiest of drinking songs, witty enough with its double and triple entendres but certainly not the thing for this audience, or mixed company. But, again, the singer gave it her own treatment. She used a tinkling, sugary accompaniment and sang it with the wide-eyed innocence of a schoolgirl who had no idea of the bawdy meaning and was bewildered when people laughed. It was killingly funny, and even ladies who would normally have been shocked were crying with laughter. The singer knew how far to take the joke – she abandoned the song before the dirtiest bits, and went straight into an exquisite piece of Palestrina. So she wasn’t just a bundle of party tricks. There was real musicianship here.

  She finished to enthusiastic applause. Clapping until his palms stung, William watched her rise and shake out the ribbons of her lute. She moved gracefully, but she was nothing to look at – gypsy-dark, her skin brown, her eyes as black as her tangle of curling hair, her thick, straight black brows giving her a scowling look. Her dress was tawdry, a yellow satin cut oddly with a round neck, a laced bodice and puffed sleeves that left her forearms bare. Her hair was caught up in a yellow ribbon, and she wore a string of amber beads wound three times around her neck. Harry might have found her in one of the Southwark stews or among the motley of entertainers in Paris Garden.

  “Don’t finish,” Harry called. “Give us more.”

  She didn’t look at him, or bow, but sat down again. “One more, at your lordship’s request, then your consort is ready to play.” She had a strong Scotch accent: ain muir.

  This time, to William’s surprise, she sang his song from Two Gentlemen o
f Verona: “Who is Sylvia, what is she, that all her swains commend her.” She played it simply, not guying it as he’d feared, and it was beautiful.

  They begged her for an encore, but she refused, gesturing prettily to the sulking consort clutching their tuned instruments. “They can do better than I. And I would be glad of a cup of wine, my lord.”

  “It’s yours.” Harry beckoned to a servant. The woman curtsied to him, then to her applauding audience, and for the first time smiled. She was pretty when she smiled.

  The consort took up their places and struck up a tune for dancing. The woman singer had disappeared.

  William moved across the room to Harry and the Earl of Essex. “Good evening, my lords.”

  “Good evening to you. Do we see you flushed with the success of Lucrece?”

  “Now that,” said Essex before William could answer, “is a truly fine poem. Better than Venus and Adonis, in my opinion.”

  “Thank you, my lord.” William bowed. They were on friendly enough terms, given their difference in rank, but there was no call-me-Robert about Essex.

  “What did you think of that woman singer?” Harry asked.

  “Interesting. She has a fine voice. Where did you find her?”

  “Oh, at a party. Odd-looking little thing, isn’t she. I thought she must be Italian or Spanish with that dark skin.”

  “Scotch,” said Essex. “You can hear the heather in her voice.” And you could hear the edge of violence in Essex’s, William thought. He shot Harry an enquiring glance, and got a sort of facial shrug in return. Essex saw this little interplay. “I count all Scotchmen as spies for King Jamie until it’s proven otherwise. That wee Scotch urchin likes to know what’s going on around our Queen.”

  “Can you blame him, when she refuses to name him as her heir?”

  “Harry,” William warned on a breath.

  “Yes,” Essex agreed, scrubbing distractedly at his red hair, “have a care what you say. We do not speak of the succession.”

  “Yet everyone knows King James must be her heir. Who else? Believe it or not, Robin, the Queen is not immortal.”

  “Will you tell her, or shall I? And the point is that there are others with a claim to the throne. Wise men do not discuss them. Especially while there’s a Scotchwoman in the room.”

  “Thus speaks the head of Her Majesty’s intelligence service?” snapped Harry, and in horrified unison William and Lord Essex begged him to shut up.

  “Master William,” said Essex, “tell us of your new plays. And the new playing company. How do you get along with Lord Hunsdon?” If this was an invitation to be indiscreet, William refused it. The Lord Chamberlain, he said, truthfully enough, was interested and considerate without being interfering, and William had two new plays on the way.

  “One at least a comedy, I hope,” said Essex. “Speaking of comedy, we’ve read Henry Willoughby’s thing.”

  “Willobie His Avisa? Fame at last.” Neither of them looked at Harry, who was busy sulking.

  “Is it true,” Essex asked, grinning, “that you spoiled his sport with the lady? Got in first pretending to be him?”

  Grinning back William said, “Not a word of truth to it, my lord. There are other men with the initials W.S.”

  “Yes and others with the initials H.W.,” snarled Harry. “I’ve had people winking and snickering since the bloody thing came out. That little shirt-lifter Francis Bacon had the nerve to simper up to me and call me Mr H.W. to my face.”

  “Cheer up,” said William. “I didn’t figure very charmingly in that Edward III. If I ever find out who wrote it…”

  “The smart money’s on George Peele.”

  “Or Henry Chettle, I’ve heard. Perhaps Chettle didn’t like having to apologise to me and Kit Marlowe. Though I rather like him. I thought we were on good terms.”

  “Playwrights’ jealousy.” Harry got abruptly to his feet and went away. William looked at Essex.

  With a sigh the Earl said, “Lord Burghley’s given him an ultimatum. Marry Elizabeth de Vere, or pay such a fine he’ll be begging his bread in the streets. He’s twenty-one in October, remember, and God knows he’ll inherit more debts than money from his father’s estate. Yet Burghley’s talking of a five thousand pound fine if he doesn’t wed the girl.”

  “Five thousand!”

  “Yes. Old Burghley’s a hard man, and unforgiving. Wed or pay. Oh, Harry will have money enough, but yes, five thousand. And Burghley won’t give him time to pay, it’s to be a lump sum. Shakspere, look, you’re probably the only person who can talk Harry into seeing sense. No, don’t act that modest surprise with me, keep it for the stage. I neither know nor care whether you and Harry are more than friends, but I do know you are friends, and he listens to you. Tell him to stop spouting dreamy-eyed nonsense about love and marry Elizabeth before he ruins his entire future. Burghley and his crowd make bad enemies. The Queen makes a bad enemy.”

  “Is the Queen so interested in his marriage?”

  “She dislikes him. Thinks him frivolous and volatile. She listens to Burghley. Believes in people making sensible marriages according to their rank. Of course she herself couldn’t marry where she willed, and no doubt she thinks others should abide by the same rules of duty. You once told Harry you were forced into marriage, yet you’ve come to love your wife, you’re happy. Remind him of that. He longs for children. That I know. And remind him that few of us can marry to suit ourselves. If you love him, get him to marry that girl before he comes of age. He won’t listen to me.”

  “Although you love him?”

  “Despite that. We were under Burghley’s guardianship together and we’re bound by great affection. Also I married the woman Burghley told me to. But Harry turns a deaf ear to me. See if you have more success.”

  Harry rejoined them then. He looked flushed and disgruntled and he would have burst into speech but that the woman singer came to his side and said, “I must go now. May I have my fee?” She spoke, William noted, as if she and the Earl of Southampton were equals, she could almost have been his sister reminding him of an obligation.

  “Oh. Yes. Four marks, didn’t we say?” He felt in his purse and handed over the coins. “Thank you. You gave us good entertainment.”

  “Do you do this often?” William asked her. “Is it your profession, perhaps?”

  “I do it when I need to pay the rent. You are William Shakspere, are you not?”

  “I am. How did you know?”

  “I go often to the playhouse. I admire your plays.”

  “Thank you. I admired your singing of Sylvia. Where had you the tune you sang it to?”

  “I composed it.” She was attaching a cord to her lute as if to carry it over her shoulder. “I have a very small gift in that direction. You are greatly gifted.” She looked up, straight into his eyes. “I had an ancestress of your name.”

  “What, Shakspere?”

  “Well, she wasnae called William.” He had been thinking how disconcerting it was to look into eyes so black there was no gradation of colour between iris and pupil. If eyes are the windows of the soul, these pitch-balls were the mirror of the observer. But now, as she laughed, he realised they were beautiful eyes, and that she was a beautiful woman.

  “I’m sorry. Of course, Shakspere. Where was she from?”

  “From Kent, I believe. It was a long time ago.”

  “Well, they say we Shaksperes are all of the one family. Perhaps we are kin, you and I, although I’m from Warwickshire. You are a Scot?”

  “Yes.” The brief animation left her face. “If you liked my song, I would like to set more of your work to music. You are a fine poet. Only today I finished reading The Rape of Lucrece. But there are many other poems and songs in your plays. You are a clever man.”

  “He is,” said Harry, and suddenly linked his arm through William’s. “A surpassing poet. It would make a pretty evening of music, your tunes to his words.”

  “We could discuss it,” she said indifferently.
“You could come to my house. I live in Blackfriars. Ask anyone for the Scotswoman’s house. I must go. Good evening, gentlemen.”

  William watched the salon doors close behind her. “Odd creature.”

  “Yes. Rather good looking, when one thinks about it.”

  “Harry, I must talk to you.”

  “Not you too! Oh yes, I saw Essex busily whispering to you.” He went to pull his arm away, but William held it.

  “Harry, have I ever failed to have your best interests at heart? So has Essex, I believe.”

  “I wonder. Very well, we’ll talk. But not now, not here. I want to dance. Can you stay the night with me?”

  “I can.” Feeling the old sting in the flesh, he wanted to add But I should not. “I can. Anne’s taken the children home to Stratford for the summer.”

  “Then stay. Please.”

  They shared a bed in the old way. Harry lay with his head on William’s shoulder, their hands linked. They had done little more than this for nearly a year, and perhaps tonight would be no different. But the strongest vows are straw to the fire in the blood, William thought, and tonight he wanted to fuck Harry. But his lovely boy was edgy and defensive; perhaps because he was a boy no longer. He had discovered women, that William knew, although they didn’t talk of it.

  “Say what you have to.” Harry kissed the hollow at the base of William’s throat. “But first tell me what Robin Essex said to you tonight.” William’s actor’s memory allowed him to repeat the conversation verbatim. Harry heard him out then said, rather amused, “Well, my dear Robin is no longer quite so deep in the Queen’s favour as he was, and he knows I am taken with his cousin Elizabeth Vernon. She’s one of the Queen’s Maids of Honour, and Her Majesty takes a dim view of men trifling with her maids.”

  “So she does. Do you love this girl, Harry?”