‘Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him?’
Then I see Lord Hunsdon, as he was the very last time I set eyes on him, in the promenading crowd at the Royal Exchange. Old and frail, and half-turning in the square, as if he wants to speak to me, but then I am pulled away by his companion. It is Lettice, all got up like a Globe whore touting for a groundling fuck, breasts like twin peaches. But then I see, it is not Hunsdon, it is Will. And we are not in the Royal Exchange but on the stage, and the audience is buzzing below us, angry and unhappy with our show.
Then I see Death, peering out of the Queen’s bed at me, laughing. The Queen is with him, and laughing merrily herself, quite back to her old form. Her forehead is blooded, as it was on the days she came back from hunting. For all I know, the stag is in there too, in a state of equal high spirits… but then I wake. Or do I? It is a moment before I know what must have happened. My old affliction has returned, caused by dreams so violent they drive me from my bed. Night-walking.
I am not wrapped in blankets with my son. I am outside, in the plague-ridden street, bare-foot in my nightgown. I slap my wrist and pinch my skin to see if I’m still sleeping, and the pinches hurt, and my feet are cold, and I can smell the stench of putrefying flesh from the plague-house that is boarded up next door. I am awake, that is for sure, and abroad. I turn, too quick, to get back to my house, but for a second my head spins and I fear that I will fall. I stop for a moment, and put my hand upon the wall of the plague-house. From inside, I suddenly hear a dread cry, like the shriek of the damned.
‘God help us! Help us! Give us water, show us pity! I have children! I have a baby! Help me!’
Two sotted prentice-boys appear. Staggering along the road, laughing and doing a little dance. They are tossing a flat cap between them, and tussling to reach it when it falls to the ground. When they see me, with my hand upon the plague-house, in my nightgown and with my muddy feet, they take me for one of the unfortunates who live there.
‘What’s this – you have escaped to spread your pestilence?’ says the first, a great big lad with a mass of black hair. ‘Get back inside!’
‘You disobedient witch!’ says the other, who is smaller, and has a scuff of brown beard ‘Go indoors, and stay there till the Devil takes you.’ They grab my arms and began to push me towards the door, though how they intend to get me through it I don’t know, as the boards are nailed down sound, and there is no way in any more than there is any way out. I try to speak, and wrench myself free, but cannot, and a nauseous dark descends.
I dream of my father again.
We are on the stage with his consort; the boards stretch away in all directions, to the four corners of the earth, which are trimmed with heavy wainscots. To the east, these are carved with Chinamen and pearl-fishers; to the west with natives with feathered heads; to the south with Moors and minarets; to the north with wolves and mountains. Father is sitting cross-legged, holding his recorder. His lifts the pipe as if to play it. There is a dagger in his chest.
I sit down beside him. ‘Father,’ I say. ‘You aren’t dead.’
He looks up. ‘Why should I be dead?’
‘You were killed when I was seven.’
He laughs. ‘I never died,’ he says.
‘Then where are you?’
‘In Purgatory,’ says he. ‘Playing all my sweetest tunes.’
Then I look up and see a demon standing next to him. Its head is a thousand charnel-skulls, grinning rottenly; its eyes are empty graves. It is wearing a magician’s gown of cloth-of-gold. My father produces a vial of scarlet notes and throws them upward. And the air is filled with the music of rubies, ascending and descending in filigree formations.
‘Father!’ I cry. ‘Father, what happened to you?’
But he has climbed on to a giant viol, which is a tomb.
Scene V
‘What is – ?’
‘Hush. Keep your foot still – Lord knows what you have stood in. Fox shit, most likely. It’s the worst of all, unless you ever step in the leavings of a wild boar.’
I am in the kitchen. My feet are in a bowl of warm water, scented with rosemary and orange peel, and Joan is squatting down before me, rubbing at my filthy toes with a piece of cloth.
‘Night-walking again! I thought you were all done with that.’
‘So did I. It’s been years… not since…’
‘…Henry was born, God bless him.’
I have only the vaguest memories of that dreadful time. Left on my own with Alfonso, who was rarely in the house, I was at first content to watch my belly grow bigger and bigger, waiting to be delivered of my baby. I ate well, and had a good serving girl who baked me apple cakes and brewed small beer. But, as the birth-date drew nearer, I began to sicken. Gall rose in my throat and would not clear, so I had to sit upright every night. Then my whole body swelled up to match my distended belly: my face and hands were so round and tight they might have been pregnant with their own progeny, and about to spill forth little newborn limbs. After a few days of this, I was struck down with a blinding head-ache, and I had a violent fit.
I remembered Joan’s words when she gave me the potion in her apothecary shop. So I sent for her, and she came and saved me. All through the howling horror of the birth I was blind with pain and my head seemed to be stuck inside a dark box. What kept me sane was the sound of Joan’s calm voice, urging me on. And at the end of it, she gave my perfect son to me, with his blunt and folded face and his curled hands, and he opened his mouth and began to suck, and I would not have him taken from me, and I would not have a wet nurse, but fed him from my own breast and everybody marvelled at the way he thrived. When at last I emerged from my chamber, ready for churching, it turned out that Joan was now my servant, and my old one had vanished away. I never questioned this, being so pleased to have her there. Joan said little enough about it, only that her apothecary shop had been burned down by a mob, and they had stolen her herbs and simples before they torched the thatch.
She is looking at me now, her eyes bright. ‘You’re a good pupil, mistress. You have the makings of a wise woman, if not a sensible one.’
‘Thank you.’
‘So maybe you would like to help with a new concoction.’
‘What is it?’
‘An ugly brew.’
‘What is it for?’
‘It is a plague-juice.’
‘An elixir? A cure?’
‘No. For some, not all, it may work as a preventative.’
‘How do you know it works?’
‘I don’t. But I made it once, long, long ago, and it saved my village.’
‘From the plague?’
‘We called it the Black Death back then. Only a few of the people caught it, but those that did all died.’
‘Shame it’s not a remedy.’
‘Once you have the contagion, mistress, it is time to pray.’
‘Pray? I do that every night. Dr Forman must know more than you do.’
Joan is quiet for a moment. ‘If he has cured himself of plague, then he has bargained with the Devil himself. I told you – the Devil tempts the scholar just as he does the crone.’
‘Perhaps he found a means through science and knowledge.’
‘Maybe so. But all science comes from somewhere, and all knowledge has its price. All finished now – they’re nice and clean.’ I lift my feet out of the water, and she wraps them in a linen cloth. ‘You aren’t as strong as you think you are,’ she says, drying them gently. ‘The spirit is willing, I’ll say that for you, but flesh is just flesh.’
‘It’s not my fault the plague has come.’
‘No. But you are pitting yourself against it.’
I shrug. ‘Who else can help me? Almighty God? I don’t see much hope for this life coming from Him. All His promises are to be fulfilled when we are dead souls in Heaven. Then I shall be grateful. Now I am afraid.’
Joan ignores my blasphemous talk. ‘That pamphlet for Mr
Tottle,’ she says. ‘What’ll you get for that?’
‘Two shillings. I’ve given half to Inchbald, anyway.’
‘Should you want another way to make a penny or two, you could always give him the recipe for my plague-juice.’
‘There is a recipe?’ I almost laugh. I think of plum pies and stuffed swans, of simnel cake and peacocks poached in wine.
‘You need the brain of a plague corpse to make the paste, for one thing. A palmful of that. And a mandrake root. And various other – items.’
‘What sort of items?’
‘Gibbon blood can be hard to come by, unless you know the right apothecary. Not so difficult for someone with my history, of course.’
I watch her as she dries my feet, patting them gently with the towel. Joan can make a poultice of ointment flowers, read a urinal of piss, and brew up the most powerful of purgations. When Henry was teething, she soothed his sore gums with the brain of a hare, and knew a cure for shingles made from earthworms and pigeon dung. Once, when Alfonso had been poisoned by a rival at the gaming-house, she cured him with a potion of rue, figs, walnuts and powdered Narwhal tusk. No more and no less than you would expect from a good apothecary. Yet there is something truly sinister about this plague-brew. She is a wise woman, and a faithful servant. What else do I know of her? And what don’t I know?
Her hair is loose and hangs around her shrivelled face. Her skin is dun, her hands withered like the talons of a bird of prey. As she works she sings to herself. I don’t recognise the tune, or understand the words.
‘How old are you, Joan?’ I ask.
She is drying the skin around the great toe of my left foot. Her grasp is firm; the cloth is rough and ticklish. She doesn’t look up. ‘Five hundred years,’ she says. ‘Or thereabouts.’
‘What?’
She folds the towel, and straightens up, using a stool to lever herself on to her feet. ‘Five hundred years,’ she repeats. ‘Time enough to learn all I needed.’
I’m not sure Methuselah lived so long. ‘Joan, are you a witch?’
‘What does it matter what I am?’
‘I want to know. I believe I have a right to, being both your mistress and your friend.’
‘I am a cunning-woman, who knows more than most.’
‘A woman? Just as I am? And you have lived to such an age?’
‘Remember, mistress, you are still learning. You know less than little, even now.’
‘Joan, I have something to tell you. I should have told you this before, no doubt, but I thought you would take it for one of my night-fancies. If I tell you about this thing, will you tell me, in return, what you really know of witchcraft?’
Her face is shrewd. ‘I might say a little more, but not enough to put you in the way of harm. Tell me your story, mistress. Does it concern the witches? I can see them standing by the Tyburn Tree.’
So I tell her the story of the meeting, and what they said about Baptiste and the plague, and how they showed me the bed with Henry dead upon it.
At the end she says, ‘We must pray.’
‘Pray! Will God help us, who helps no one when the pestilence comes?’
Joan hangs the towel over a chair to dry. ‘God bless you, mistress, and give you strength.’
‘God bless us all,’ I say, testily. ‘Now, Joan, what is this you say about being five hundred years upon this earth? Did God play a part in that?’
She crosses herself. ‘Do not speak lightly of Our Lord, Aemilia. I was a witch once, and I did many things that I cannot bear to think of, and I have lived for many years beyond my span through the use of my craft. But I have repented of it now. They shut me in a nunnery, and I escaped it, and resolved to do my penance in this world, not in some stone prison. And so I am here. I have come to you. So you must believe me when I tell you that some matters are the will of God, and His will only. I have some experience in these matters.’
‘But five hundred years!’ I say. ‘That is not possible.’ Anne says there are rumours that Joan is mad, and I have always thought this to be a foolish piece of gossip. She is strange, yes, and possessed of far greater knowledge than most wise women. But… perhaps she is out of her wits after all? She hands me a pair of woollen stockings and I pull them on. I remember the two young ruffians who threatened me.
‘What happened to those boys?’ I ask.
‘What boys?’
‘Outside. They thought I had escaped from the boarded house.’
‘You were dreaming. I saw no boys.’
I go to the door. It is a dank day with a dull grey sky. A dead-cart has stopped outside the plague house. The carter is adding two fresh occupants to his load. But they aren’t boys. They are street-hounds. Their grey tongues are dangling from their open mouths. One is black with shaggy fur, the other brown, a bearded collie-dog.
Even Paul’s Churchyard is quiet in this time of plague. The shops stand empty, their open fronts showing here a solitary printer proof-reading a chap-book, there a determined play-buyer, scrutinising a bill. When I reach Cuthbert Tottle’s shop and look inside, at first it seems deserted. All I can see is the monstrous printing press, filling the room almost to the ceiling. Then I see Cuthbert, sitting alone, head bowed, hands folded as if he is praying. He is dressed in black.
‘Mistress Lanyer,’ he says. ‘I bid you a good day.’
‘And the same to you.’
I stand, waiting for him to demand a cheerful pamphlet, or one with two-headed monsters or demon births. But, after smiling at me vaguely, he returns to the contemplation of his hands.
‘I have the cross-gartering pamphlet that you asked for,’ I say. I’ve little confidence in this. I have rarely seen a thing so dull. But I hand him my pages and he peruses them, pushing his little spectacles up his nose. I see that it is wet with tears, which set his glasses sliding down again, and what I thought was prayer is grief.
‘How is Mistress Tottle?’ I ask, as he reads. ‘I don’t see her in the shop today. I hope she is well?’ Of course, I fear the worst.
‘She died on Sunday.’
‘Oh, God rest her!’
‘It took her off in two days. I was away at Cambridge, or else I would be boarded in our house, to await the Maker with her. On Friday she sat over there…’ he indicates her habitual place ‘…setting a psalter. She was as perfect… as perfect as… Well. I can’t bear to see the half-done words.’
I frown. ‘Mr Tottle, the pamphlet I have brought in is a very poor thing. I don’t think I should trouble you with it any further.’
Grief has not affected his head for business. He hands it back to me. ‘I can’t find fault with your description. It’s not worth sixpence,’ he says. ‘Nor even a farthing. At least your Lilith poem had some amusing passages, I seem to recall. I mean to say, they seemed amusing then…’
‘I am sorry for your loss…’ I hesitate. ‘I do have something else. Something useful for these dreadful times.’
He rises from his seat and stands awkwardly, dwarfed by the printing machine. ‘Hmm,’ he says. ‘If you can help us to survive the plague… I think I can vouch that there is an audience for that.’
‘There is this,’ I say, and give him a sheet of paper. It is Joan’s recipe for plague-juice. ‘It wards off the pestilence,’ I say. ‘It doesn’t cure it.’
‘Isn’t that what we all want? Better avoid the smallpox than survive it, with the face of a pitted toad. Better avoid the plague than dance with death.’
‘Then we might do business.’
He reads it, front and back. Then he turns it over, and reads it once again. His face brightens. ‘Very interesting. I like this. I like it very much. It needs a little background – where you found this cure, why it works, why this is the best protection known to Man. That sort of thing.’
‘I can do this.’
‘When can you bring it to me?’
‘Give me some paper and I will write more now.’
‘Would that all the pamphleteers and poets c
ould match your industry.’
‘Would that I could match their sex.’
He brings me new paper, virgin-white. I stare at it for a moment, almost frightened to ruin its purity. But then I shake my head, sit down and write for two hours. I find that I can recall almost all of Joan’s lore and a fair bit besides. Scraps of rumour, homilies from Anne, stories of strange cures and spontaneous recoveries. A little touch of Plato adds a scholarly flourish. When I have finished, Tottle takes the pages to the window and reads my words. Finally, he says, ‘This is worth three shillings of anybody’s money.’
He pays me in silver coins and I look down at them, not sure if I have been rewarded for words or witchcraft.
Scene VI
There is a rat on the kitchen table, bold as you please, eating cheese off Henry’s trencher.
‘Be off with you!’ scolds Joan, thwacking it on the head with a poker. The creature barely seems to notice, but jumps off the table, a large chunk of cheese bulging out of one cheek. Its great earthworm of a tail flops into a bowl of small beer as it lollops on its way, finally disappearing into a hole in the wainscot.
‘What’s ailing Graymalkin?’ I ask. ‘Are we overfeeding him, or has he lost his taste for rat-flesh? There are more than ever this summer, I swear.’
‘On account of the weather being so warm,’ says Joan. ‘It’s not natural. I pray for rain, and a wholesome north breeze.’ She fans herself with a pamphlet I had been reading to distract myself. (The title is Jane Anger: Her Protection for Women to defend them against the scandalous reports of a late-surfeiting Lover, and all other like Venerians that complain so to be overjoyed with women’s kindness. Nothing about cross-gartering there, you will observe.) ‘Flaming June indeed. We are burning up.’
‘It’s the sort of weather that makes a boy want to run out and play!’ Henry is sitting at the table, grinding a knife into its side. ‘No one else but me is stuck inside, with their old serving-maid, and nothing better than rats for playmates!’
‘You stay here, where it’s safe,’ says Joan. ‘There’s another plague-house in this street, Lord save them. We must do all we can to stay away from the sick, Henry. It’s a terrible illness, and a cruel end.’
Dark Aemilia Page 20