Dark Aemilia

by Sally O’Reilly

  ‘A man! So be it. Perhaps a woman may be more whole-hearted.’

  ‘Will you listen to me, Aemilia? Will you hear me?’

  ‘My son might die this night for all I know. I have no time for lectures on philosophy.’

  ‘This is no lecture, mistress. This is the stuff of wisdom. Agrippa, that great genius, used the natural elements to tell the future. Earth, fire, water, air. The manufacture of objects – talismans, potions and rings. The summoning of angels and demons to work miracles on his behalf…’

  ‘So summon me one! Quick! And I will bear it home to serve me.’

  He sighs. ‘There you are, you see? Your impatience is proof of your weakness. You grabble after small things, won’t wait to be wise. A woman cannot think as a man can think. She is of her nature ruttish, light-minded, and with one eye on her looking-glass.’ He points to the obsidian mirror, and there I am, staring out at myself, wild and woebegone.

  My hand twitches: I would like to strike him. But I keep silent, watching as he rifles inside a wicker basket before producing another clutch of parchment rolls. He unfurls one, flattens it out on top of the other documents on his desk, and proceeds to examine column after column of tiny black calculations, intricate numbers piled one on top of the other, till they sprout more numbers and still more, like lamp-black frogspawn. Forman touches the numbers lightly, as if they might sting.

  ‘Theophilis and Cyprian gambled with their immortal souls in the quest for knowledge of this kind,’ he says. ‘As you will know, being a woman of education and much reading. Death is not the worst we have to fear.’

  ‘Don’t lecture me as if I were an infidel! Hell is as real to me as a garden gate.’

  He pulls out another page, and bends close to look at it. ‘The ignorant seek miracles. Priests, in their expedient wisdom, seemed to bestow as much. There’s many a country church with an ass-bone on the altar, said to be the lost rib of a broken saint. Before Good King Henry swept away such falsehood, this land was steeped in lies and incense.’

  He seems to have found what he was looking for. He stares at a long calculation, takes two vials of liquid and pours them into a long glass retort, thin as a reed at one end and spherical at the other. The two substances seem to hold back, one from the other, till they mingle with a sullen hiss.

  ‘There is scarcely a town in the realm that could not offer its good burghers a blood-weeping Virgin or a sweetly nodding martyr. No surprise to anyone that the little fish swam shorewards to hear the preaching of St Anthony, or that the Virgin at Saragossa could make half a leg grow whole again.’

  He breaks off.

  ‘Magic, you see, Aemilia. Magic. Whereas what I’m about is science. If I show you what I have hidden here, you must swear that you will never tell another soul.’

  ‘I swear.’

  ‘Good. Because nobody would believe you anyway. This is the last night my discovery will remain here.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘You are asking me to help you summon a demon.’

  ‘Indeed, I am more than asking you! I am begging you!’

  He pulls a stout chest out from underneath the desk and unlocks it. Very carefully, he lifts out a long, narrow object, shrouded in a black velvet cloth, embroidered with a pattern of silver stars. ‘The point is, my dear, that the giving of life is a heavy responsibility. Just as any mother knows.’

  ‘What’s this?’ I whisper. Something prickles my neck, as if a spirit walked. I glance at his little alchemy oven. ‘Have you turned base metal into gold?’

  ‘Almost,’ says Forman. ‘Or, you might even say that this achievement is the greater, since there is one thing in this world more precious even than gold.’

  He rests his trembling hands on the draped velvet.

  ‘Diamonds? Rubies?’

  ‘Life itself.’ He pulls the cloth aside.

  My hands fly to my face and all the breath goes out of me. The cloth conceals a tube of glass, about a foot in length, and no wider than my wrist. I strain to see – my mind is chasing its own horrors – I see rats in the roof-thatch, plague-corpses in the street, a young virgin falling into Hell’s pit. My child, running through this Hell towards me. A child. Oh, Lord God! What is the doctor doing? I stumble closer, catch my foot and fall upon the ground, which flames with stars. I come to myself – the doctor is so absorbed by the sight before him that he pays me no attention. I struggle to my feet. My belly is cold. Forman’s body blocks my view. But, in the glass, I can see liquid and a little foot.

  ‘What foul sorcery is this?’ I whisper.

  ‘Not sorcery, though fools will think it so. It is the higher magic – the crown of an alchemist’s craft.’

  ‘You made him?’

  ‘Indeed.’

  ‘But… I don’t understand how this is possible. You are either God himself, or you are… the father of this manikin.’

  ‘As you say, I made it.’

  I stare at Forman.

  ‘It’s monstrous – terrible. Who will rear him? Who will suckle him? How can this be the crown of anything?’

  ‘This required great study, let me assure you.’ The doctor is studying the newly mixed liquid as it shivers and shifts at the swollen end of the retort. ‘The creature is the fruit of a mandrake root and the semen of a hanged man’s last ejaculation.’

  ‘So that’s what you are: Satan’s midwife!’

  ‘The root was dug up before dawn on a Friday, by a black dog bred for the purpose. I washed it and kept it in a pot of milk and honey. Each day I dripped in the blood of a stillborn and the hanged man’s seed. And the creature grew and grew – to this.’

  ‘God above! Can he speak, think, pray? Is he a man?’

  ‘It is a homunculus.’ Forman lowers the retort. ‘I feed it on earthworms and lavender seeds.’

  ‘May heaven forgive you! This is your science?’

  ‘I have my natural children, through the pleasures of the flesh, and now I have this, through the power of my thinking.’

  I think of my little Henry, when he was newly born, his tiny wrinkled face and elvish hands. I fear that, being so new, he might go back from this earth to wherever he had come from, and stay there for another eternity. And now… now that eternity is perilously close.

  ‘Oh, most noble and erudite scholar! Most respectable philosopher! The Devil himself could not concoct a more vile experiment than this.’

  ‘This is my brain-child.’ The doctor frowns, drawing down his ginger brows. ‘My invention.’ He is distancing himself from his creation with cold words.

  I press my hands to my mouth, feeling bile rising in my throat. ‘Dear Lord, what are you saying? This is wicked, wicked blasphemy!’

  Forman’s face is set into a mask of disapproval. ‘Do not upset yourself, Aemilia, please. This is merely an experiment in knowledge.’

  ‘An experiment, you say?’ I turn to him, shaking. ‘You call him your “brain-child”. So you are his father, and his mother too.’

  ‘Only in principle.’

  ‘But he is your own son!’

  ‘Who is it, Mistress Lanyer, that wishes to summon demons to do her will? Ah, I forget myself. It is you! You cannot affect such squeamishness as this.’

  I swallow acid-tasting puke. ‘I want to call up some power that could aid me, so that I can save a life!’

  ‘Very modest.’

  ‘No, sir, not modest, but rooted in maternal love.’

  ‘There is no link between “maternal love” and my vial-grown manikin,’ says Forman. ‘You see – your female logic is askew.’

  ‘Jesu, sir! If you made him, then you must take care of him.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I am neither mother, nor father, to this manikin. I am its Creator.’

  ‘Dr Forman! Hear yourself. Do you put yourself so high? You’ll bring damnation on your head.’

  He tears his gaze from the glass and looks at me. His eyes shine with determination. ‘No. I wil
l not be damned. Your theology is even weaker than your logic. What I have made is mine to destroy.’

  ‘Isn’t our Lord the God of Love? Amor vincit omnia – isn’t that what we were taught? Love conquers all. Love, not philosophy. Not science.’

  Forman frowns, his face set into stern lines. ‘It’s all very well to speak of love. Latin can be quoted in any cause. I might just as well say – vita incerta, mors certissima. Which has the virtue of being beyond dispute.’

  ‘Oh, brave philosopher! “There is nothing certain in life but death.” What thoughts of genius are these! I believe my cat knows as much.’

  ‘In this brute world, men die each day upon the street, faces black with plague. Infants die before they learn to speak their mother’s name.’

  ‘Yes – but you can save him from such uncertainty! You can be a merciful God, not a cruel one!’

  ‘And risk my own safety, and that of my family? No, Aemilia. Don’t you see? Those who accuse me of necromancy might find this little experiment interesting indeed. Now I know that I can create such a thing, I have no need to preserve it. My work is done.’

  ‘You truly mean to kill him?’

  ‘I want to show you that meddling with life and death has consequences. And they are immense and terrible.’

  ‘If you kill him, you do so because you choose to. You are sick in your soul, sir. Why do such a thing?’

  ‘If the physicians find out what I have done, they will have their proof that I am not a respectable practitioner of medicine but a cozener, a conjurer of spirits.’ His face twists to a smile. ‘In short, no better than a witch.’

  He lifts up the tube.

  ‘Like Drake, and Ralegh, I am sailing to the furthest reaches of what is known. But I have no craft to bear me; my craft is my cunning. Those brave explorers must contend with pirates, ice-floes, sea monsters and the raging oceans. I must fight with vain physicians, caught in their staircase world of weasel tricks and pompous place-men.’

  ‘What torments do beset you, sir! This is all vanity, nothing but self-seeking vanity!’

  ‘They will kill me if they can, do not doubt it.’

  My head is spinning with all this. ‘You wouldn’t murder your own child! Listen, Dr Forman – Simon – I implore you! You should feed him buttermilk and sweetmeats, see where his tastes lie! What does he hear? He might make music the like of which has never been heard in all of time, not even in the Court of Solomon… Your discoveries are only just beginning…’

  ‘Silence!’

  He comes closer. I can see the blood-threads in his eyeballs. I take a step backwards, and press my body against the cold wall.

  ‘Aemilia Lanyer, you come here, breaking my windows, assaulting my privacy, when I am in fear of my life. This is my warning to you. Challenge the natural order if you must, but expect to pay the price.’

  ‘What price?’

  The liquid in the retort shimmers against the glass. It is the colour of a cat’s eye, yellow flecked with topaz. ‘The high magic has its own logic. I gave the creature life…’ He picks up the glass and tilts it, then empties the liquid out of the retort and into the open top. Eventually, the glass tube brims with the golden liquid. ‘And I will take it away.’ He thrusts a cork into place, sealing the tiny fellow into his translucent prison. I hear a dread sound, like the aching wind that shakes the house above.

  ‘For pity’s sake!’ I scream. ‘Spare him!’ I lunge towards him, but Forman knocks me to the ground. Inside, I can see something which squirms and writhes, then beats against the glass bird-fisted. Crouching like a dog, I spew forth bile. There are no Bible words for this. The doctor uncorks the tube, picks up another glass jar, and tips in the contents. This time the brew is a dark porridge, noxious as the shit in a ditch. It has an odour of incense mixed with the visceral stink of humankind. As the sick brew swirls into the amber liquid, it gurgles and bubbles, churning into black vapour.

  I snatch up a candlestick and run back up the first flight of steps – into the vast cellar – and then the second, stumbling over my wet skirts. I run into Forman’s study. I can hear his footsteps coming up the stairway. Looking around me, I see Cornelius Agrippa’s grimoire, snatch it up and hurry through the hall. Then I unbolt the door and run headlong into the stormy night.

  Scene XI

  When I return, I run up the staircase to Henry’s room and fling myself down beside his bed. He is tossing and turning, with his nightshirt pushed from his shoulders.

  ‘Mother! Help me! I’m burning. I’m freezing…’ His face is flushed dark, and his breath is foul. He stares at me foggily before his eyes roll backwards and he faints away.

  ‘Henry!’ I cry. ‘Henry! My darling boy!’ I hold him tightly. The whites of his eyes shimmer under his lashes.

  Joan pulls the sheets back. ‘There, see? Top of his leg. Tucked in the crease.’

  A boil, blood-red.

  ‘Plague-sore,’ says Joan. She crosses herself and picks up the grimoire, which had fallen to the ground. ‘I have heard of such a book, but never thought to see it,’ she says. Her face is still. ‘I don’t need eye-reading for this.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ I scramble up and take it from her. I see that the words which were as plain as day at Dr Forman’s have now formed themselves into indecipherable squirls and curlicues. ‘Eye-reading? What other kind is there?’

  She touches the words on the cover. ‘It’s called Pseudo-monarchia Daemonum. A Bible of the purest evil. Is this what you have brought to cure him?’

  I lie down on the bed next to Henry and kiss his hair. The room is swaying; the walls are pale with fever. Sweat is running down my back and Henry’s body throbs against mine.

  ‘Death is here! Death is in the house!’ Henry starts up, and is staring at something behind me, just as the Queen had done. I turn to look, half-believing that the grinning spectre might indeed be gazing down at me. There is nothing, except a wall-hanging showing good Susanna and the elders. The two old lechers leer at her over a garden wall. She is draped, white and naked, against the steps down to the blue water. I try to say, ‘It’s just a fever, my love. You will soon be well.’ But I’m drowned out by the sound of a woman sobbing. I realise that the sobs are mine.

  ‘He’s come for me! He’s come for us all!’ cries Henry. And with that he vomits up all down his skinny chest and over my wet chemise, and such a stench I never knew. He rages and pukes, and soon there is nothing left inside him, only bile. We wash him clean, and lay him down again. I change into a clean nightgown, and I can’t remember a single prayer, not one, beyond ‘Our Father’ and then silence.

  I lie next to him, my eyes wide and dry now, watching, watching. I hardly know if I live or die, only that he is beside me, and I must guard him, hold him close to the earth with my eyes. Joan scatters rose leaves and bathes his body in sweet waters, and applies a poultice to his brow. She might as well sing him nursery rhymes and do a hop, skip and a jump for all the good it does him. He writhes and tosses and jabbers wicked-sounding words. I hold his hand tightly in mine, in case he runs mad and naked into the windy street. After many hours, he falls into a twitchy stupor, talking to himself.

  At the darkest hour of the night, Joan gives me a cup of ale. I prop myself on one elbow and glug it down, wondering at its strange and bitter taste. She rests on a stool by the bedside and drains her own cup to the dregs. The blackness of the night seems to press against the candle-flame. I hear a mournful howling outside. Each long-drawn-out note seems more doleful than the last, and grows ever louder, till at last I say, ‘Go and throw something at that hound, I cannot bear it.’

  Joan gives me one of her looks. ‘Don’t you know what that is?’

  ‘A dog, Joan, howling in the night.’

  ‘There are no dogs left. They’ve all been hanged and skinned for purses. The creature outside is not a thing of flesh and bone.’

  ‘Haven’t we troubles enough, without these old tales?’

  There is the howl aga
in, most dreadful. It seems to echo inside my aching head. I run to the window and throw it open. There is a bright half-moon, and enough light to see the street by. The wind is blowing hard, flattening the weeds and grasses growing among the stones. But there’s not a soul in sight. And no dog, either.

  ‘It’s a portent of Death,’ says Joan, as I close the casement again.

  ‘Oh, surely. With you, my bold and cheerful servant, everything is a portent of Death. The humming of a bee, a blossom laden tree, the scent of green apples. Death, Death, Death, every time.’ But my sharp words tire me, and I lie down next to Henry once more.

  Joan stands up. ‘I’m going out,’ she said. ‘Since your errand brought us nothing useful.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘To fetch Father Dunstan.’

  ‘That miserable old Papist! What for?’

  ‘He knows the old religion. The old magic, that some would like to strangle with the law. He’ll call St Roth to help us.’

  I must have slept, curled round my son. When a great rapping comes on the front door, I rush to answer it, half-falling as I go. But it isn’t Joan. It is a man, broad-shouldered, his face hidden in a black mask. He is dressed for a journey in stout boots, a leather doublet and a velvet cap. I know him even before he lifts his mask to look at me.

  ‘Aemilia – Mistress Lanyer – you are safe,’ says Will.

  ‘I am alive.’

  ‘And… the boy?’

  ‘He lives too.’

  He smiles and raises his eyes to Heaven. ‘Thank God! Thank God!’

  ‘What do you want?’

  He is staring at me so intensely that he seems surprised to hear me speak.

  ‘Can I come in?’ he says, urgently.

  ‘Why? What do you want?’

  ‘To speak to you, and – ’

  ‘Then speak.’

  He sighs. ‘Come, let me pass.’ And somehow he is in the hallway, standing much too close, and I have the sensation of the world falling backwards behind me. He glances around, with his familiar quickness, and more than his usual air of impatience. Taking in my face, my nightgown, the pot of plague-juice on the table, and the cat, gnawing at the hind legs of a coney by the smoking fire. I take a step, and stumble. He catches me, and I look down at the lampblack on his fingers, shocked by their familiarity.