Dark Aemilia

by Sally O’Reilly

  Just then, I stiffen. Something has fallen, downstairs, in the empty house. I pick up the lamp, and go to the door, listening. I hear a soft voice: ‘Men have taken it. We shall have vengeance.’ Lilith! Oh, Heavenly Father! My hand flies to my mouth, and perhaps the gust of air this makes extinguishes the candle. Or perhaps it blows out for some other reason. I stand for a moment in darkness. Then, almost without knowing what I do, I draw back the curtains and climb on to Will’s bed.

  I listen, as hard as I can, from inside the curtain, and I can hear the sound of whispering, and the swish, swish, swish of a Serpent’s tail. After a moment, I notice how warm it is within the drawn curtains. Then I catch the gentle sound of breathing. I stare into the dark, my own breath still. I notice a familiar body scent. Once it would have had me reeling with desire. Then, sightless, I stretch out my hand, and another warm hand grasps it.

  ‘Aemilia?’ The familiar voice is taut.

  ‘William.’ What else? What else can I say? Here I am, within his own bedcurtains. I wonder he does not strike me. To say ‘Lilith is here,’ seems a strange beginning.

  ‘What in God’s name is going on? Am I dreaming?’

  ‘I fear you are awake.’

  ‘And you are in my bed? In plain fact? What is this?’

  ‘It is I. It is Aemilia.’

  ‘Christ’s blood.’ His tone is as harsh as any blow. ‘What kind of witch are you? First you haunt me in the whore-house…’

  ‘I was looking for Tom Flood.’ My lips are blunt with shock.

  ‘Then I wait all day for you, and you don’t come…’

  ‘My servant was in labour.’

  ‘Your servant? You think more of her than you think of me?’

  ‘She nearly died.’

  ‘And, when I give you up, you come!’

  ‘I am… I wanted to see you,’ say I. For what else can a woman say who has crawled into an old lover’s bed? And God forgive me, it is true.

  ‘You have maimed me, woman. I told you to stay away.’

  ‘Maimed you! What have you done to me? Have I written slanderous verses? Have I damned you with false accusations, lies and abominations? Have I stolen your words, and claimed them for my own? Have I done any of these things to you? Or have you done them all to me?’

  ‘I have loved you,’ he groans. ‘Loved you to madness and beyond.’

  ‘Ay, madness is the word!’ I cry.

  ‘I wanted to make amends. I see now that it cannot be done.’

  I feel the night’s cold at my back, and begin to shiver. ‘Will – there is something that I need to tell you…’

  He squeezes my arm. ‘You have bewitched me, Mistress Lanyer. So much so that I can’t untangle what is actual from demons and nightmares.’

  The black night seems to bind us like a spell.

  ‘Will – it’s that matter of a demon that I…’ He holds both my hands now, so tightly that they hurt. As I look into the blackness I hear the bedroom door creak open. ‘Who’s there? Who is at the door?’ I whisper.

  ‘There is no one. Have you never done?’ His breath is on my face. ‘Your scent, lady – what is it? I remember it so well, like the musk of old Egypt.’

  ‘Will…’

  ‘Are you corporeal, or spirit?’

  ‘I’m Aemilia, real and breathing…’

  ‘Then let me have you once again – and again and again – as I have each night in my dreams and nightmares! Oh, my lady! Let us stay together, in the darkness, and have done with words forever. Let us be flesh, flesh, and nothing but.’

  He lets go of my hands, and I feel his fingers unlacing my bodice. A wave of horror and delight rushes over me. ‘Oh,’ I whisper, trying to control myself. ‘Will – you must stop…’

  He has pulled the laces apart, and I can feel my under-smock coming loose about my breasts. Now our bodies are pressed together in the fug of warm air within the curtain. My breath shudders, and my legs are running sweat.

  ‘I have done something evil,’ I say. ‘I fear it cannot be undone.’ But, even as I speak, I run my hands over his unseen form. With joy and nausea I feel his naked shoulders. I tear my shift down further, and take hold of him in my bare arms.

  ‘What are you, Aemilia,’ he says, ‘but Circe, the enchantress? I am ensnared, and lost, and yours.’

  Sightless, I find his hard belly, his soft neck, his salt lips. ‘I summoned a demon,’ I whisper, too scared to say her name. ‘I drew a circle.’

  ‘Then draw another,’ says he, winding his arms tightly around me. ‘And let’s go to it for an eternal night.’

  There is a tearing sound as I rip myself free of my skirts and wrap my legs around him.

  ‘You are a mystery,’ he says, as the bed begins to heave beneath us. ‘You are my witch.’

  ‘I am not a witch, Will. I am a woman,’ say I, as the night writhes. But I am not sure if he can hear me, or whether I have really spoken.

  The night rears up, within us and around us, and we seem to leave the chamber and fly high above the roofs of London and dive deep below the City to the Underworld beneath. There is no sweetness, but there is ecstasy and pain so pure that it seems close to God. And there are no words, just flesh and lips and hair and panting, and wetness and darkness and a desperate pounding in my head and everywhere, till I hear him cry, ‘Aemilia! Aemilia! Aemilia!’ and there is a great violence inside me and my mind fills with perfection and white light.

  We lie together, afterwards. Do I hear something? Is it the sound of the door closing? I raise my head, listening and wondering what I have done, and whether Lilith has played some part in it.

  ‘What is it?’ asks Will. He holds me closer. ‘What is this supposed evil that you did?’

  ‘It was, indeed, a sort of witchcraft.’

  ‘To punish me?’

  ‘To put an end to that Macbeth.’

  I feel his body quiver. He is laughing.

  ‘Don’t you believe me?’ I ask.

  ‘I believe that you believe it, but I don’t believe the Devil walks among us. There’s evil enough in what men do.’

  ‘What did I see, then?’

  ‘That I cannot tell, my love.’ His hand is stroking my face. ‘I should have married you,’ he says. ‘A long, long time ago.’

  My breath stops.

  ‘Marry?’

  ‘It should have happened. Fate did me wrong.’

  ‘It was not God’s will, so there’s an end to it.’

  ‘And yet we are twin souls, lady. There is no woman on this earth, not anywhere, who is a match for me, as you are. There is only you. A freak of beauty, and mind, and learning.’

  ‘A freak! A fine compliment! Only the old Queen was allowed to call me that.’

  He catches hold of me and we begin again, rocking in the bed in our rage to have each other and make darkness light.

  Scene VII

  It is dawn. Will is still sleeping, and I look down at his face. Just as I used to many years ago, when I was someone else. He is quite beautiful, so pale. I don’t kiss him. I dare not. The room assaults me with its stark reality, all boxed and tight and quotidian. I get up, and pull my dress on. There are some papers on the desk, and I pick up a quill and dip it in the lamp-black. For a moment, my hand hovers over the page, but I don’t know what to put. In the end, all I can write is: I have loved you. Nothing else makes any sense.

  When I get home, I go up to my room and fetch down Forman’s grimoire. I page through it, breathless, looking for guidance. Is there a spell, a form of words, which can undo a summoning? I have a nagging, sickened feeling. I am not sure what anything means. I hardly know myself. I poke the fire, seeing Lilith in the circle. Did I really summon her? Did it matter that I tumbled into the circle? Nothing seems right; nothing seems to be in my control.

  With the cooking-pot simmering on the fire, and the cat sitting hump-backed by the scuttle, reality seems too solid for such wild fancies. I have not been in my right mind. I have walked at night, and m
y febrile nature has always been at odds with my strong will. This sudden night with Will is thrumming in my head, each touch, each cry. Perhaps my passion for him has broken some dark spell? I tip sea-coal from the scuttle and my spirits lift. I will have him. I will have my lover, every inch of him, night after night. Why should I not? Henry will not suffer from my lying with his natural father. I can forgive Will for the sonnet book; I can forgive him for the play. What was I thinking of? Is God my master, or Lucifer and all the crones of Hell? I must go. I must go to the Globe, and see that play for myself, and hope to God that all is well.

  Henry comes rushing in, bouncing a ball.

  ‘Where have you been?’ I ask, hiding the book in my skirts. ‘Just because I am out on business, and Marie is resting, it does not mean you are free to run amok.’

  ‘I have been playing football all around the town. You never saw such sport!’ says Henry, sawing off a hunk of bread. ‘We made the length of Long Ditch our pitch, and took on a score of prentice-boys and beat them soundly, though they bragged they’d trash us! What weakly, flap-eared knaves!’ He stuffs the bread into his mouth all in one go.

  ‘Those prentice-boys will stab you as soon as look as you, some of them. They’re vile, rough creatures, who can’t even spell their names,’ said I, taking the ball up and keeping it. ‘You should be safe at home, with Ovid and your hornbook.’

  ‘Ovid!’ says Henry, or something like it, through the bread. He pulls a goblin face. ‘What does Ovid know? I saw a Serpent with a woman’s face – where’s that in your Ovid?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘She is not real, Mother, don’t stare so! A fellow had a stall and charged us two farthings to have a look at his Lilith, Queen of Death. She is part woman, part Serpent. I touched her wings,’ he says, modestly.

  ‘Dear God! What “fellow” was this?’

  ‘I don’t know. His stall had “Lucifer” painted on the side, but I doubt that’s the name he was born with. What is the matter, Mother? You are looking queer.’

  I stand up, my head reeling. ‘I am much put out and barely know which way to turn.’

  He swallows the bread and pours out a glass of small beer.

  ‘Because of Marie and her joined-up twins? Shall they always be such monsters? They are loathsome as all Hell!’ He glugs back his drink with relish.

  ‘No – because of… other matters. Things which do not concern you.’ In truth, of course they do concern him. I have just come from your father’s bed, in which we fucked like werewolves. How would that seem? Or, I summoned the demon you saw today. Do not go out at night.

  Henry takes the ball deftly from me and begins to bounce it once again. ‘Anyway, you need have no fear for me this afternoon. I am off to see a play.’

  ‘What play?’

  ‘Why, Macbeth, of course. If I miss it now, it won’t be on for another month, and everyone else at school has seen it, and it’s steeped in blood. And Tom says he will tell the doorkeeper to let me in for nothing.’

  ‘No!’ I say, startling even myself, such is the violence of my tone. ‘No. You shall not go. I forbid it.’ I must see this dark drama alone and Henry must remain here, safe from harm.

  ‘But why? It is a most amazing play – everybody says so. And it’s got fighting in it, and even some history, too.’

  ‘I don’t care. You must stay here and help Marie and her poor children.’

  I pounce on him, catch his ear between my right thumb and finger, and twist it till he cries out. In this manner, I drag him into Marie’s chamber, where she is sleeping, cradling her nuzzling twins. The spring sun is warm and heavy in the shuttered room, and a bee is buzzing drunkenly around her ale-jug.

  ‘Mistress!’ She jerks awake. Her face is drawn and tired. The babies begin to cry. ‘What is it?’

  ‘Henry will help you,’ I say. ‘Do you have need of anything?’

  ‘No. Thank you.’

  ‘Then will you lock the door when I am gone, and sit upon the key? And make sure he stays with you till five?’

  ‘Till five?’

  ‘Until the play is done,’ says Henry, sulking. ‘Mother, why do you persecute me so? I am not a child.’

  ‘Is Tom playing today?’ asks Marie. She picks up the twins and settles them into the cradle. ‘Did he tell you, we are to marry next week?’

  ‘That is good news,’ I say, though my mind scarce takes this in.

  ‘Don’t tell Mistress Flood, lest she run mad in the street.’

  It’s hard to believe that I live in the same world as weddings and celebrations. How I wish that Will and I could begin again, stow away on some great ship and cross the ocean to a new world, far away. I would take Henry with me, but no other mortal, and we could be happy, somewhere, in a forest of tobacco trees. There would be no playhouses or print-shops, and no demons or deceived wives.

  ‘Here is the key.’ I give it to Marie, and wait outside till I hear it turn in the lock.

  Why does my belly twist at the mere mention of the name ‘Macbeth’? I’m not sure. But I suspect that Lilith might do us all most dreadful harm. I can see her yellow eyes so vividly, and, though I pray to God to let her sleep once more, I have no other power to rid myself of her foul presence. Yet I fear that God has matters to attend to other than righting misbegotten spells.

  As I step out of the door, who should appear but Anne herself? All done up as usual, like the Queen of the May. She has a new ruff, all silvery like a fairy wing, and her eyebrows are plucked to nothing. Tom’s misalliance has not distracted her from Fashion.

  ‘My dear Aemilia,’ says she. ‘You are coming too? Well, then, we must hurry if we are to catch a boatman! All of London will be there.’

  ‘Will be where?’ I ask in confusion, with a sinking feeling.

  ‘At the Globe, to see Macbeth! I would not miss this for all the world.’

  ‘I thought you were angry with me.’

  ‘I can’t blame you for Tom’s cock-brained foolishness! I am sure he will forget that girl in time. Now, come, quickly! It’s a shame you look so poorly, but you will have to do.’

  And so I consent to be dragged towards the river on her arm. The summer sunshine is bright and warm when we set out. But the weather changes suddenly. The sun disappears and rain is falling by the time we have climbed aboard a wherry, aided by an aged boatman. I throw my cloak over the two of us, for fear that Anne’s finery will be washed away. When we reach the Globe, the storm is gathering strength. The wind crashes in the trees and rain is falling as if from a tipped bath. We sit in the second gallery, but it provides little shelter. Water streams between our feet, falling on to the heads of the groundlings below, who are slipping and falling in the mire. The covered stage, too, is awash with rain, blown inwards by the furious wind. I look up at the black sky and hear the first roar of thunder. No need for stage musicians for this performance – Nature is providing her own malevolent effects.

  ‘They must call it off!’ I shout to Anne.

  ‘No, no,’ she insists. ‘If it is on the playbill, you can be sure that they will put it on. They have the public to consider.’

  A dagger of lightning splits the sky. Three figures come on to the stage, and the trumpets blast out, calling for our attention. The trio gathers around the trapdoor in the stage, and up comes a black cauldron. I look hard at these three players – where have I seen them before? They are gifted boys indeed. One looks like an ancient crone, another like a middle-aged matron, and the third appears to be a beautiful young girl with a plait of yellow hair wrapped around her head. I narrow my eyes. It is hard to see anything clearly in this rain.

  ‘When shall we three meet again?

  In Thunder, Lightning or in Rain?

  When the hurly burly’s done,

  When the battle’s lost and won…’

  The voices of the witches change, so that what first sounded like the newly broken tones of boy actors is first a keening banshee cry, and then a heavy-throated growl.

&
nbsp; ‘Who are the witches?’ I ask Anne. But she only grips my hand.

  A heavy fog has rolled in from the river, and torches have been lit and set upon the stage, where they hiss and splutter. The crowd, subdued by the downpour, is silent. In place of heckles and cat-calls there is watchful quiet. In contrast, the voices of the three witches carry with a clear echo like words shouted into a courtyard well. There is a peculiar cold.

  Lord Macbeth appears upon the back of a black destrier. The storm has upset the beast, and it is clattering round in circles, tail lashing, showing the whites of its eyes. Its hooves slip waywardly on the wet boards. Macbeth (who is Dick Burbage) is about to speak, but there is another flash of lightning, a livid fork above us, and the stallion screams. It rears up, pawing the air, and Burbage comes crashing down on to the ground. Dropping its head, the beast gallops from the stage, sending the players scattering. But none of this daunts Burbage. Not for one moment does his performance falter, and he gets back to his feet in an imperious manner, and regards the crowd calmly, hand on his sword.

  And here is Lady Macbeth! You would never guess that she is only Tom, declaiming such evil words in her robe of gold and scarlet, crow-black hair hanging round her narrow face. Tom speaks his words with passion, and their meaning chills me more now than when they first spilled from my pen.

  ‘I don’t like this,’ whispers Anne. ‘It is unnatural.’

  ‘That is the point of it,’ I hiss back. ‘Macbeth should know his place.’ But, as I speak, there is a tightness in my head, as if the dead-cold of the theatre has clenched my skull. Whether through Will’s alterations or because of this storm which is making night from day, my play now has a surfeit of evil in it. But I know that I have to watch it, for there is some rhythm in the story that draws me further and further in.

  The scenes are rapid and the drama bloody – Duncan the King is killed, Macbeth takes his place, then murders Banquo and (as he hopes) his young son Fleance. Now the stage is set out for a banquet, with a trestle table, joint-stools and long benches. King Macbeth (as he has become) begins to speak of ‘Noble Banquo’ and to express the dissembling regret that his friend cannot be present at the feast. (Though he knows full well he is dead, having paid two murderers to slay him.) I know what’s coming next, of course. The ghost of Banquo will appear, and Macbeth’s posturing as King will be sorely tested.