Dark Aemilia

by Sally O’Reilly

  ‘Boys’ twaddle.’

  ‘Oh, come now.’

  ‘This is fine work. Only a man could fail to see it.’

  ‘You have a fanciful nature. This can work in your favour. So give me a tale from far away. A minaret, a monster. A traveller’s tale will always catch the eye.’

  ‘A story for a merchant to relate, or some loquacious seaman.’

  ‘Or fashion. Have you an eye for fashion?’ He looks at me uncertainly. As usual, I am wearing my old grey dress, embellished only with a ruff that Anne has loaned me. My hair is scraped back under my bonnet, and my cheeks are ruddy from the sun.

  I hesitate for a moment, thinking of Anne and her like, and some of the strange outfits that Alfonso insists on wearing when he goes off to play for the Queen. ‘Cunning ways with cross-gartering?’ I ask.

  Tottle clasps my arm. ‘Oh, most excellent notion! Can you do a thousand lines on this? New ideas, Venetian styles, the courtly colours? I could pay you two shillings. One shilling now, one shilling when you bring it in.’

  On the one hand is poor Eve, downtrodden since the dawn of time. On the other is a month’s security, which might be purchased for this sum.

  ‘Done,’ I say, holding out my hand.

  The dwarf has spies, no doubt, or the gift of second sight. No matter: there he is. Sitting outside the charnel-house, scoffing an apple cake.

  ‘Mistress Lanyer. You have my money?’

  ‘One shilling,’ I say. ‘A down-payment.’

  He chuckles. ‘I like a lady with wit. But this is not the bargain.’

  I glare at him.

  ‘You are still a fine woman, Mistress Lanyer.’

  ‘And this means – what?’

  ‘It’s common knowledge that once you used your face to your advantage. Not to mention your other parts, which I’m sure are quite as sweet. Of course, no courtier would look at you now. But a humble landlord, like myself, might take a sup.’

  ‘What do you want?’

  ‘Some time with you might settle half the debt.’

  ‘Some time?’

  ‘These are the terms I have agreed with Mistress Flood: I visit once a month, and she pays me in kind. And very kind she is too, if I may say so.’

  He beckons me over. Reluctantly, I draw nearer. He clasps my hand in his dry little paw.

  ‘Yet nobody would call her fair. Her breasts are like sacks of dough halfway down her belly. Yours, I can see through your shift, are still sweetly rounded. Just the shape for sucking.’

  I pull my hand away, not sure whether to box his ears or smack his arse. ‘You aren’t even tall enough to reach them, you lecherous little toad.’

  ‘Two fucks a month would do me nicely. I should look forward to it, which, between ourselves, is more than I do with some of my ladies. With some it’s a case of skirts up, cock out, and let’s go about our business. But with your good self…’ The little turd is ogling me as if he thinks we might go to it right away.

  I have to laugh, even though the thought of Anne Flood giving herself to this manikin sickens me. ‘Oh, Mr Inchbald! Most lascivious of insects! I would rather die, sir.’

  He brushes the crumbs from his beard. ‘You take a foolish risk, in speaking to me so rudely. Remember who I am, and who you are. Your grand ways edge you ever closer to the gutter. You are nothing but an ageing whore.’

  ‘A plague on you, Inchbald!’ I call after him, as he goes hobbling on his way.

  The plague. I wish I could unsay it. Like the Devil’s name, it’s better not to mention this curse upon our times. And down on the harbour-side the busy ships are disgorging men and cargo from the furthest limits of the fevered globe. The wind picks up, the sky darkens. I feel the first sharp tang of autumn, and pull my cloak tighter around me. I look up, at the chasing clouds, knowing that what seems bleak now will soon look like Paradise.

  ‘The plague is coming,’ whispers a voice, and I look to see who speaks. But there is no one there. I stop: surely the voice was that of the old crone from the Fair? What do these creatures want, who stalk me with their foul predictions?

  When I return home, I seek out Malleus Maleficarum and open it. I read till the candle has burned down and the words are scorched into my mind. We women, it seems, have a penchant for devilment, being so lascivious and lustful. A lecherous woman might lie with the Devil and become a witch in consequence. I remember my forced copulation with Wriothesley and Will’s poisonous verse: this was how he saw me. ‘All witchcraft comes from carnal lust,’ declaims the pamphlet, ‘which in women is insatiable.’ And their device for recruiting new witches is to make something go amiss in the life of a respectable matron or young virgin, so that they consult a sorceress, and are tempted into witchcraft in their turn. I think about this for a long time, wondering if those fairground furies might have such a scheme in mind. But I am not like the other matrons, whose skill lies in the churning of butter and the fattening of geese. I am as clever as any man, and as cunning as any witch.

  Scene VII

  In my opinion, if we are made in God’s image, it is God that we see dangling from the gibbet, and it is God’s work to end a human life, not Man’s. I know I am alone in this thought, as in so many others. But this scruple of mine about the executioner’s craft has made any gallows-place a place of horror to me: I have no love for an execution. And there is no gallows-place more horrible than Tyburn Cross. It is a lonely, God-forsaken place, and the winds seem to sweep in from in all directions. The Triple Tree is a large triangular structure that stands upon the northwest road, in the way of passing traffic, so that the carters and horsemen can see what will befall those who break the English law. The ingenuity of its construction is that as many as twenty-four felons may be hanged at once, which is an expedient measure, as there is no shortage of murderers or cutpurses to keep the hangman busy. Beyond the Tree is an open field where soldiers are shot for their misdemeanours: I suppose this is of some benefit to them, as they die with their guts inside them, more or less.

  When I was young, not long after I was married, I saw them execute poor Robert Southwell. He was a devout Jesuit, and tried to make the sign of the Cross with his pinioned arms, before quoting Romans: ‘For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to all that believeth.’ They wanted to bowel him alive, as they do all traitors, but Charles Blount and some of the other nobles jumped up and hugged Southwell’s legs until his neck broke, to save him that final agony. He died so bravely that after his corpse was bowelled and quartered, and his blood flooded across the highway, the assembled crowd was silent. There were no cheers or catcalls, and no one shouted ‘Traitor!’ in the customary way. And that silence filled me with a fragile hope for all of us, that we could recognise true goodness and respect it, even as the hangman acted out his ritual butchery in the name of Law.

  I think of that day as I walk to Tyburn. It was fitting that Southwell was a Jesuit, for they are often accused of idolatry and witchcraft. Healing relics and icons are part of the Old Religion, but they have no place in the new one, and Catholic priests are sometimes accused of ‘Devil-conjuring’ among their many other crimes. Devil-conjuring is not a skill I’d take up lightly.

  I watch the heavy carts clattering along the centre of the pitted roadway, while parties of horsemen overtake them, trotting briskly. Not many women to be seen today – just one or two ladies riding side-saddle. It’s a position both ungainly and undignified, as if riding a horse sensibly is the proper business of a man. Did Diana the Huntress ride all skewed over in her lady’s saddle? I think not. For the most part, men ride, while women have nothing better than their own legs to carry them.

  It’s a pale, sickly afternoon, with a foul wind. I walk slowly, unwilling to arrive. Tyburn is an evil place – they say that Satan walks there, and I can well believe it. As I come nearer, I see there is a row of corpses hanging from the Tree. I do not look close, but notice that one is a woman. The poor creature’s breasts are showing through her torn dress. A kit
e is perched on the Tree, proud and puff-chested, as if displaying its wealth. When I am a few yards away, I stop, looking first one way down the high road and then the other. Black clouds loom overhead and rain begins to fall. I take shelter under an elm tree and watch the travellers passing by. I think of the ships landing at the quayside, and the rats scurrying behind the wainscot, and the stench of the dunghills piled against each common house, and the wrath of God and a thousand things besides, and wonder which of these is to blame for the plague. God surely has a gift for punishment. We are accustomed to horror and fear, and so Hell is easier to summon in a fresco or imagination than Heaven, a place of obscure cloud and blurred inaction. Job has many brothers (and sisters) in his suffering and pain.

  Time passes, and I have the strange sensation of watching it go on its way, in the guise of carriages and horsemen and herds of geese. At last, I see that the road has emptied, and night has snuffed out the feeble sun. All I can hear is the swish of the falling rain. There are no stars, but the moon shines bleakly through the clouds. The silvery light gives the world a shifting luminescence, and most objects are silhouettes. A solitary carriage clatters by me, pennants fluttering. It rounds the corner, heading for Oxford, and disappears from sight. Once more, the road is deserted except for a troop of muddy dogs, sniffing and snapping at each other. Then the leader of the pack – a barrel-bodied mastiff – raises its head, listening. It howls, and runs back along the London road. The other dogs follow, barking fiercely.

  Swallowing, I turn my gaze back towards the Tyburn Tree. Five of the corpses still dangle against the wet sky. But the sixth – the woman – is lying on the ground, beneath a severed rope. Three figures are crouching over her. One of them is sawing at her neck with a long knife. I gather myself and begin to walk slowly towards them. As I approach, I feel the air thicken around me, and the sounds of voices come through the rain’s hiss, as if conjured from its pattering repetition.

  ‘Bassano.’

  ‘Bassano.’

  ‘Aemilia Bassano.’

  ‘No, she’s Lanyer now; they tied her to the fool.’

  ‘But it’s Bassano that we know, my dears.’

  ‘Aemilia Bassano.’

  ‘Bassano.’

  The rain falls in sheets, half-blinding me, and I can’t see my way clearly till I am right by the Tree. The three dark figures are standing around a black cauldron that bubbles and steams upon a fire of blue flame, which leaps and crackles despite the downpour. One of them is scraping the eyeballs out of the dead woman’s head, and dropping the scarlet mess into the pot. Another holds a severed arm, and is busy prising out its fingernails. The third – an aged, decrepit crone – watches me with hooded eyes.

  ‘She comes, see, sisters. Bassano comes.’

  I feel a wind rise, which seems to come from the ground below me, so I am enveloped in a screaming cloud. My cloak is torn from me, and the bonnet ripped from my head, so my hair streams out behind me and I am staring at the three women.

  ‘What do you want with me?’ I shout. ‘What do you mean by creeping round me and whispering of dread things, and the plague?’

  They are silent, and I listen to the rain.

  I gather my courage and try again. ‘You have tricked my husband, and stolen my money. What is the meaning of this? Tell me! I demand to know.’

  ‘She challenges us,’ says one of them.

  ‘You don’t challenge us,’ says another.

  ‘But you may seek our counsel.’

  ‘I don’t want your counsel!’ I cry. ‘I want you to leave me be!’

  The three figures separate and walk slowly around the Tree, so that their slow footsteps mark out a circle. A spume of dark flame flies up from the cauldron, and the earth around it heaves, like boiling porridge.

  ‘Hail, Bassano, bastard of Bishopsgate!’ cries the First Witch.

  ‘Hail, Bassano, strumpet of Stratford!’ says the Second.

  ‘Hail, Aemilia, spawn of the Equivocator!’ says the Third.

  ‘What do you mean? What are you saying?’ I am shaking, my hands twisted together. Sky and earth seemed to have merged into one.

  ‘He tricked us.’

  ‘He tried us, sorely.’

  ‘We gave him what he asked for, and he gave us nothing back.’

  I pushed my wet hair out of my eyes. ‘Who did? Who tricked you?’

  The air seeps sound again, all around me.

  ‘Bassano!’

  ‘Bassano!’

  ‘Baptiste Bassano!’

  A spectre starts to form in the dark flames spewing from the pot. I see with horror that the face of my father is forming in the vapour. He is bloody and screaming, as I saw him in his final moments.

  ‘What do you want from my poor father? He is dead, let him rest!’

  ‘He would’st be great.’

  ‘Was not without ambition.’

  ‘But too full o’ the milk of human kindness to catch the nearest way.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Ah, yes,’ say three voices. ‘He is dead, but his soul escaped us. We are owed a soul.’

  ‘A soul was promised.’

  ‘The plague is coming,’ whispers the air around me.

  ‘The plague is coming.’

  Another image begins to take shape in the flames. I see a bed with the curtains closed. As I peer at it, the curtains are slowly drawn back by invisible fingers, and I see a figure lying there, in that final stillness that is waiting for us all. It is a child, a boy, his eyes staring upwards, Heavenwards, at nothing.

  ‘Henry!’ I scream. ‘No – never! You shall not have him!’

  And then I am lying beneath the gibbet, and there are five bodies staring down at me, and the witches have gone. I stand up, shivering, my limbs stiff with cold. The rain has stopped and the clouds have blown away and the half-moon is reflected by the puddled ground.

  Act III

  Pestilence

  Scene I

  Westminster, December 1602

  The first sign is a giant comet which shoots across the sky soon after All Souls’ Day. Like a wounded star, spewing its own brightness, it streaks across the heavens. The streets are full of staring citizens, squinting upwards. Children perch on windowsills. The boldest scramble up to the roof-thatch and cling there while the flaming star lights up the firmament, so that night is day and the City is ablaze with heavenly light. Then the rumours start. People have seen angels and coffins far above their heads. The graves at St Bride’s Church crack open and the dead scream warnings from below. A phantom appears each night at Fetter Lane, bowing when the clocks strike twelve. The madmen at Bedlam break out and run into the streets, rending their hair and telling all who see them they must flee. ‘Death is coming!’ they shout. ‘Death will come upon us!’

  Winter sets in, and the sense of foreboding grows stronger, even though some say that cold weather dulls the power of plague vapour. Then one evening, as I am walking home at dusk, I see him. It is a clear, frosty night, with a full moon. There is a figure up ahead, a tall man in grey. At first, I do not mind him; there are others passing to and fro, and he does not strike me as strange or fearful. But as I walk I draw nearer to him; although I am proceeding at a normal pace, his steps are faltering, slow. Is it the slushy ground that holds him up? It rained heavily before the freeze set in, and the multitude of footprints have turned the path to mush. As I come closer, I think that I know him, but could not say where from. He is broad-shouldered and well-dressed, and his fur-trimmed cloak trails behind him on the ground. Then he staggers and cries out, falling to his knees. There is a note of despair in that cry which chills my blood. I stand for a second, not knowing if I should flee, but something pulls me forward and I go to him.

  ‘Sir?’ I say. ‘Can I…’ And then he turns his head. It is my father, as I saw him last. His eye-sockets are sightless holes; his mouth is choking forth a torrent of blood. I reach out towards him, but my hands are those of a little child.

&nbs
p; ‘What did you do, dear Father?’ I call out. ‘What did you promise? Tell me, sir, I beg you!’

  Then I am alone. The shade has vanished. Above me, the moon shines, and all is silver, silent. When I get home, I pray till dawn.

  It is a long, cold winter. The Thames freezes over but the ice is not strong enough to walk on. A group of children think to test this out, and dance merrily upon the frozen surface, downriver from the Bridge. They fall through into the black water, and all are drowned. A few days later, one of them is washed ashore at Deptford. A little girl, no more than three years old, in a transparent coffin of Thames ice. She still wears her little bonnet and leather shoes. Her eyes are wide open.

  And then, in the darkest days of winter, comes the worst portent of all. The Queen is dying.

  ‘What do you mean, dying?’ I ask Alfonso, as he shakes out his snow-covered doublet and hangs it near the fire.

  He holds out his hands to the flames. ‘What I say. She took ill, with a fever, then kept to her rooms. Now she is removed to Richmond.’

  ‘With the Court?’

  ‘Her ladies, favourites, a few physicians. She has no need of music now.’

  Snow is falling against the window-panes. Outside, it has settled on the sewer ditch, making dead dogs ecclesiastic marble.

  ‘Dear Lord!’

  ‘She is old, Aemilia. She is not as you remember her. She has been low in spirits since poor Essex was executed. She weeps all day, they say.’

  ‘I can’t believe she’s dying.’

  ‘You thought that she would live forever?’

  ‘Perhaps I did.’

  The thought of the Queen’s death makes me feel giddy, as if her presence in the world is a talisman against the Evil Eye and the worst that could befall us. This is a foolish fancy, of course. The Queen is a just a woman, now fallen into the sour humour of the aged. What’s more, her reign has had its share of adversity. We have suffered bad harvests, lean winters, persecution, defeats abroad and the fear of invasion. Even the plague itself has afflicted us many times. But although the sickness has been foul, and many have died, it has never compared to the old stories about the Black Death, when the quick became the dead without warning, the Reaper took the living as they sat at cards, whole villages died and the streets were piled with corpses. Worse could come than we have known. Before her time there was blood and madness. After she goes – who can tell?