Dark Aemilia

by Sally O’Reilly

  My husband has had plenty of time to learn his new tunes. But now, the day of her funeral has come.

  ‘Wife, bring me my tasselled stockings!’

  ‘They are on the bed, Alfonso.’

  ‘Wife, my trunk hose! Be quick about it!’

  ‘You are wearing your trunk hose. Arse-brain.’

  ‘Wife…’

  ‘Silence, husband! Put your clothes on, which are spread before you. You may be the master of your music, but you do not command your spouse.’

  Off he flounces in a sulky humour. I watch him go, his pretty steps all dainty down the filthy street. I wonder, as I do so, what Will is wearing to bid his Queen farewell, and who has helped him with his trunk hose, and found his shirt, and watched him dress. Such thoughts can still confound me, so that time seems twisted and love and hate are twinned. But then Henry comes up behind me. ‘Mother, shall we go and get a good place now? Tom says he will stand in King Street, to get a proper view.’

  ‘I may go to King Street, young man, but you will stay inside the house with Joan.’

  ‘But Mother –’

  ‘But nothing. In this, for once, you will obey me. You know what I have said about the plague. Two dead in this street already. In the parish, seventeen. You must stay at home, and learn your lessons from your hornbook, and behave.’

  ‘But –’

  I raise my hand to him. ‘Henry, if you do not do as I say, I will beat you. I will.’

  ‘But you are going –’

  I slap him hard across his cheek and his eyes are hard and angry.

  ‘I hate you.’

  ‘Good. I am your mother. This is as it should be.’

  Outside, the streets are filled with a fairground throng of watchers and mourners. The way is blocked with every manner of person, old and young, men and women, ale-wives and aldermen, cozeners and cripples, all herded together, head to head and cheek to cheek. Had I not wished to see her one last time I would keep indoors myself, for I can see that, whatever miasma or mist brings the plague, we are all piling together in a manner most favourable to its passing on.

  Anne Flood bustles up, done out like a Venetian courtesan.

  ‘Come along, come quickly,’ she says. ‘We shall miss the best of it if we don’t make haste.’

  I have been avoiding her since Inchbald told me of their arrangement. Now I can no longer hold my peace. ‘What’s this I hear, about how you pay your rent? No wonder you can afford such dainty ruffs.’

  She rolls her eyes. ‘Will you judge me, for wishing to survive? Since Mr Flood passed on, I have lived on my wits, and what little he left me.’

  ‘But lying with Inchbald! Anne! Does he not make you retch?’

  ‘Certainly.’ She gives me a piercing look. ‘I consider you my good friend, Aemilia. And you told me once that you think of another man when Alfonso fucks you, though you are too close to tell me who it is. If you had to suck a dwarf’s tiny cock to keep yourself respectable, you’d have my pity, not my contempt.’

  I shrug, and we walk in silence for a while. This other man, this secret incubus of mine, is Will, of course. My demon lover. For a while, my skin prickles with the memory of lust. Hot lust, cold words. That’s my great love. That’s his legacy.

  Then, overcome with curiosity, I ask, ‘How tiny?’

  She laughs. ‘I’ve seen bigger on a newborn hedge-pig. Here, take this.’ She passes me half an orange, which I press to my nose to mask the street-stink as we hurry along.

  We come to the bottom of King Street and we can see the palace gates. The procession is upon us. First come the black-robed bell-ringers and marshall’s men, calling, ‘Make way, make way!’ and clearing a passage through the crowds. They are followed by a procession of poor women – and just a few poor men – marching four abreast, all in black, eyes cast down. Then come artisans, messengers and servants from the Queen’s woodland and stable. Then follow empty carts driven by stable boys, and two of her horses, riderless. One is covered in a black cloth, the other in black velvet. And this is but the start of it. Trumpeters blast their horns at the crowd, to keep us back, and sergeants-at-arms pace along the line.

  Now come the standard-bearers, with the great symbols of the Tudor house: the Dragon, the Greyhound, the Lion and the Portcullis. Then the fifty-nine musicians – and there’s my sweet husband, quite the prettiest of them all. Then the apothecaries, physicians and minstrels of the Court. Parliament, the Privy Seal, the gentlemen and children of the Chapel Royal, all singing a mournful tune. Here is Lord Zouche carrying the banner of Cheshire, Lord Herbert with the banner of Cornwall. Next came the Mayor and aldermen of London, and the gentlemen pensioners, with their axes carried downward. On and on they go. Here is the Welsh banner, there is Ireland, and there goes the French ambassador. His train is carried by a retinue of page-boys. It must be six yards long.

  Anne is weeping at my shoulder. ‘I shall never forget this!’ she says. ‘The poor Queen! God rest her!’

  I see a weeping widow cut a purse, and pretend not to. I see a wet-nurse slap a baby to keep it quiet. I look for Will. I long to see him – and dread the sight of him.

  At last we see the hearse itself, a chariot pulled by four horses in trappings of black velvet. As if this were one of her great triumphal processions, the Queen is there in person, a life-size waxwork, as magnificent in death as she ever was in life. The painted effigy reclines upon her coffin, dressed in Parliament robes, with a crown upon its head, and a sceptre in its hands. Above the hearse is a canopy, carried by six earls, with a dozen lesser nobles carrying six banners alongside.

  ‘I never saw such a thing!’ says Anne. ‘I never did!’

  ‘It’s a shame her waxen self can’t rule us,’ I say, ‘rather than some Scottish prince who knows as much of England as I do of France.’

  ‘Oh, what will become of us?’ Anne cries out. ‘The pity of it! The pity of it!’

  I watch the chief mourner pass, Lady Northampton, her black train carried by two countesses. It looks like a procession from the Underworld itself. In my memory I see the Queen laughing, striding, picking up her skirts to make more speed. I see her drinking a glass of watered wine, accusing Blanche Parry of making it too strong. I see her straighten the gold circlet upon her curled red hair, when her beauty could still be faked for a grand occasion. And I see her face, that last time, fallen into a death-mask beneath the clown’s paint.

  As the hearse rumbles past, there is a general sighing, groaning and weeping.

  ‘God rest Your Majesty! God rest your soul!’

  ‘Lord save you, for all eternity!’

  ‘Lord Jesu, save us all!’

  Suddenly, there is a terrible scream and the plague cry: ‘Lord have mercy on us!’

  ‘Back, back,’ shouts someone. ‘See who comes – a plague-mort! Mind yourselves…’

  A young maiden is pushing to the front of the crowd. The people fall back, more anxious to avoid her than to see the coffin of our departed Queen. Once, this girl must have looked a little like Elizabeth. She has the same bright red hair, crinkled and shot with gold, and the same fair skin. But her beauty has been blasted. Her eyes are sunken and bloodshot. Her face is swollen and purple with plague-spots. The skin of her bare arms and legs is covered in weeping lesions. She is half-naked, wearing nothing but a linen undershift, torn and bloodied and hanging from her shoulders. She cries out, and runs at the procession, but a sergeant-at-arms pushes her back.

  ‘Leave off – away!’ he shouts, shoving her with his ceremonial lance.

  The distracted creature puts her head back and screams again – such a soul-sick sound! She tears at her smock, grunting and laughing, so it hangs down in front of her to show her white breasts, covered in evil sores, putrid and stinking. There is barely an inch of her that isn’t riven and bleeding, as though she had been flayed with a whip. She turns to face the crowd. ‘You should kill me!’ she calls out. Her voice is soft and childish. She catches the arm of an old man, standin
g next to me. He shakes her off, white with fear. ‘Who will kill me? Who will cut my throat?’

  No one speaks. The procession moves on. Now the Queen’s ladies pass by, in orderly completeness, as if they can neither see us, nor hear us.

  ‘You would slay me if I was a dog!’

  ‘By Jesu, what are you all? Will no one help her?’ Father Dunstan forces his way to the front. He pulls the maiden to her feet, and wraps her in his cloak. ‘Shame on you!’ he shouts.

  The girl is chattering again. The cloak hides everything but her bright hair.

  ‘Will you slay me, Father? Will you throw me to the dogs at Bankside? Or shall I poison them? Shall I poison them, Father?’ But then she begins to convulse like a hanging man, and her mouth foams. Father Dunstan drags her away, through the parting crowd.

  Scene IV

  London is my home. A horde of bloody prentice-boys shouting ‘Clubs!’ can make me smile. I love the filthy bustle, and would as soon hear the shout of the night watch as the song of a nightingale. But we breathe yellow, corrupted air that chars our throats. Even our snot is black with soot. The petty pains of daily life are cruel enough. So it’s not always plain what is plague, and what is not. And the fear that every ague and pustule is the harbinger of certain death can haunt the best of us.

  So. There is first a fever, but the sun is hot, the day is long; we may need no more to cure it than a draft of small beer. Then there is the vomiting – but who in London does not throw up their guts from time to time? We are careful never to eat raw fruit from the tree, but still the lurgy gets us. Every time we puke up in the chamber-pot, we think we are victims of a poisoner’s craft. But there are signs, Lord help us, and, when these come, we know the end is near. God preserve us from the swelling, for that is a portent of the end indeed. And though there are those who live, they are few, and strong. It starts like a strain, a pain that stretches down an arm, or around the groin, but then focuses its evil into one place. Which place is fixed to be a bubo, a sac of heavy poison that will kill in moments if it bursts within your body. The ones who live are those whose buboes split outside their skin, so the fluid may be drained off. For whatever humour you may have – phlegmatic, sanguine, choleric, melancholic – none blends happily with this vile contaminant.

  It is early summer. I am sitting at my hearth place, reading. Joan is standing at the doorway, looking out into the street, with that look of sour enjoyment with which she likes to greet disaster.

  ‘It’s a merry do,’ she says. ‘The dead outnumber the living all over the City. Heaven and Hell are bulging at the gate. St Bride’s yard is full, and St Olave’s. If it takes us off now, we shall be buried in the ditch.’

  ‘Thank you for those cheering words, Joan. If you can’t say anything more uplifting, go upstairs and tell your beads.’ Rosaries are forbidden by the law, but I know she has one hid beneath her bedstead in a casket.

  She takes no notice of me. ‘The City pageant has been cancelled.’

  ‘I know it.’

  ‘Jack Mellor, that ran amok yesterday with his sores all out, was put to death this morning.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Cruel, I call it.’

  ‘He would have died anyway,’ say I.

  ‘I was talking to the dog-catcher at St Margaret’s, and he has killed more than five hundred hounds. Five hundred!’

  ‘No wonder the streets are quiet.’

  ‘Seventy-two parishes infected, Mistress Flood told me. And there are nine houses boarded up in Westminster, and eleven souls are newly dead. It stalks us close.’

  I put my book down. ‘For pity’s sake, Joan! What do you want of me? Henry is kept from school. The house is full of onions and garlic. We have sweet herbs in every room: the physick garden is bare. And we pray.’

  ‘I know it, mistress. We are taking every care we can.’

  ‘What more can I do? Shall I lie down and weep in the fireplace? Shall I fill my hair with ashes? We are not dead yet. We shall sit it out.’

  ‘Says who? Has the Almighty sent you word?’

  ‘Don’t be insolent. You are my servant, not my keeper.’

  ‘Oh, and are the two so very far apart? Who would keep you, if not old Joan? Not your popinjay husband, that’s for sure.’

  This is quite enough. I get to my feet, ready to strike her. But she says, ‘Mistress, you know I would do everything in my power to help you.’

  I let my hand fall. ‘Yes.’

  ‘But what I can offer… my skills and remedies… they won’t save us.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘There is something evil here.’

  I have tried not to think of the witches, but they are never far from my mind. ‘Joan – there is something that I want to ask you…’

  Alfonso rushes in at this worst of moments. Back from the palace, and breathless with his own importance.

  ‘The new King has called for the consort.’

  ‘But the King is not here – not yet crowned…’

  ‘Precisely. We are leaving London.’

  ‘Praise be to God!’ says Joan.

  ‘Praise indeed!’ I say. Is it possible that for once Alfonso has been useful? But – of course – there is a guilty look upon his face. I see how it will be without the need to ask. ‘This is good news,’ say I, falsely smiling. ‘All the family will be saved. When do we go, husband?’

  He looks down at his feet – fine shod in French boots, elaborately pointed. ‘I… it is the musicians who are needed. At Cambridge, at the pleasure of His Majesty.’

  ‘So be it,’ says Joan. ‘I will see to our preparations.’

  ‘Preparations for what?’ he asks, uneasily.

  ‘Why, for the journey sir.’

  ‘To mine. To my… preparations. Not to yours, Joan, or my wife’s.’

  ‘Nor to Henry’s either?’ I feel a surge of anger, even though this is no surprise. ‘You will leave us, then. To live or die. And see what remains of us when you return.’

  ‘This cannot be so, master,’ says Joan. ‘More people die each day. The pest house is full. They are digging graves out at Tothill Fields – graves as big as caverns… They lime the dead when their bodies are still warm… You could not leave your little son to that.’

  Alfonso twists his hands together, his long, perfect fingers. ‘It is not my choice, Joan. I am the master here, but merely a servant to the King.’

  ‘Then you can pay for us to follow.’ Her voice is quiet, but I have never known her so outspoken. ‘You have gold, don’t you? Or, if it is gambled, you have your fine Court friends, who will lend you a ducat or two to save your wife and child.’

  ‘Get out!’ says Alfonso. ‘This is not a matter for you.’

  Joan climbs the stairs, silent with rage.

  I stare into the fire. I can see that this unmans him more than the tirade he was expecting. I watch the flames, thinking that each lick of heat is a like a human life, flaring up for an instant, and then gone for good. My calm is aided by my knowledge of my husband – expecting nothing is an excellent preparation for receiving it.

  After a while he clears his throat. ‘I am sure you will be safe.’

  ‘Surely.’

  ‘It will die out soon. Everyone says so.’

  ‘Indeed. “Everyone” has such confidence that they are packing up their goods and chattels, boarding up their houses and heading for the hills of Kent.’

  ‘The doom-sayers.’

  ‘The wealthy. And the wise.’

  ‘We have seen the plague before. Every year, it comes and goes.’

  ‘Not like this,’ I say. ‘Not for years. If you insist on being a snivelling coward, then kindly have the grace to be an honest snivelling coward.’

  ‘I shall be soon be back. With money. And preferment. A certain position, with the new King. I am doing this for all of us – for our future.’

  ‘Alfonso?’

  ‘Yes, my chuck?’ He smiles, uneasy.

  ‘Go.’

&n
bsp; And so he does, with some clean linen in a bundle, and Joan’s last impudent accusations following him down the street.

  That night, I keep Henry in my bed, so I can will the plague away from him. His habit is to throw himself at an angle across the mattress, muttering and kicking, so the eiderdown comes off me, and there is no way I can lie straight. I lie there, sleepless. Much as I despise my husband, there is no doubt we are worse off without him. There was little hope of help before, but now no escape is possible. We can’t flee the City like the wealthy and well-born. Money isn’t all you need. Not only can the rich afford to hire carriages to remove their goods, they also have country estates to move to, with vast gardens, far from London. What’s more, they have the legal right to run away. Each has a certificate of health, a pledge that they are clean of plague and not carrying the pestilence. Without this, if you flee, you may be hanged for your pains. When I lived at Court, we removed to Windsor Castle during one outbreak. The Queen had a gibbet put up on the village green. Poor souls who fled the City were put to death at her command. Horses supped water from the trough as these innocent subjects kicked their last.

  At last I fall asleep, but I am prey to such dreams and nightmares! I see them kill my father again, a circle of dark figures. I walk up behind him, and at first his steps are light and hurried, then slow and burdened, then they stop. Again he turns, and I see his silent scream. Again I reach out and my child’s hands are in front of me. But this time they are botched with gore. I scream myself, but my screams are still silent.

  There is a voice.