His Dark Lady

by Victoria Lamb

  A hole in his back?

  The likelihood was that he would die soon. Goodluck examined the idea hazily and did not find it too disturbing. At least death would bring an end to this pain.

  Nonetheless, Goodluck took the bargeman’s advice and did not make the mistake of trying to speak or examine himself again. He set aside his questions for the moment and focused instead on the struggle to control his shivering. Every movement, however slight, jerked another white-hot bolt of agony through him. If he could manage to lie still for a few minutes, he told himself, the pain might become manageable.

  Despite his efforts, Goodluck must have passed out again, because he slowly realized that the lantern was once again swinging from its hook and he was alone. The bargeman had left him lying there on the cot, one bare arm dangling over the side. He tried to lift his arm back on to the cot, and cried out at the wrenching pain in his chest.

  He lay panting for a while, grimacing as he fought against the desire to faint.

  There was a bitter taste on his lips, and a tankard of some dark liquid beside him on the floor. Had the bargeman given him something to drink before he’d left? Goodluck had no memory of it.

  His mind wandered, but kept returning to Sos, the lively Greek he had left for dead in the mud under the sign of the wool merchants.

  We are betrayed.

  By whom, though, and to what end? Someone who had known he would be meeting Sos there at sundown, and had carefully arranged matters to make it appear as though Goodluck himself had murdered his friend. That would be how it must look to the Watch, and no doubt his name would have been given by now as the murderer by whoever had plunged that knife into the poor Greek’s back.

  Goodluck had begun to shiver again. He stared into the glowing heart of the brazier, willing his sluggish body to warm up.

  If he survived this wound, it was clear that he would be unable to show his face in London until he had managed to clear matters up with Walsingham. Unless it was Walsingham himself who had ordered this? He did not wish to consider that unsettling possibility, and put it aside, like his questions to the bargeman about how he had been pulled from the river and where he was now.

  The important thing for the moment was the sure knowledge that he represented a serious threat to somebody. The same somebody who had betrayed him and his team, or else who had bought the loyalty of one of his men.

  His eyelids flickered. He felt drowsy now, and wondered if the bitter taste on his lips was a drug he had been given.

  Could the traitor on his team have been Sos? The only one of them not born English and raised a stout Protestant from the cradle?

  Or was that precisely the lie he was supposed to believe?

  Thirteen

  Stratford-on-Avon, Warwickshire, June 1584

  THE PLAYERS’ CARTS had been on the road since dawn, trundling through narrow country lanes bordered by woods and fields lush with thick grasses and the tall bright spikes of meadow flowers. Cutler, in the lead cart, pulled on the reins as he reached the crossroads – which was marked only by a weathered wooden cross set at a drunken angle into the soil – and the whole cavalcade creaked to a halt.

  Will glanced behind him. Apart from those driving the carts, the rest of the company seemed to be asleep, dozing in the June sunshine with their caps over their faces. That was how he preferred it, though: slipping away quietly without any long goodbyes, especially since he owed one or two of the players a handful of shillings that he was unlikely to be able to pay back before the end of the year.

  He slung his bag over his shoulder and jumped down lightly from the cart.

  ‘Thanks, Cutler,’ he told the cart-driver, a large-bellied man whose unkempt beard was constantly tucked into his shirt, apparently to save it falling in his ale. ‘I’ll catch up with the company in a month’s time, as agreed.’

  ‘We only play Warwick for two nights at best. So don’t come late.’ Cutler looked down at Will’s threadbare shoes. ‘If you miss us, it’s a long walk back to London.’

  Will grinned and reached up to shake Cutler’s hand. ‘I know, I’ve walked it before. I’ll be there. Have a good journey up north.’

  ‘It’s not too late to change your mind and come with us, Will. We’re playing some of the biggest houses in the north this year. Think of the wages you’ll miss.’

  ‘I am thinking of them, trust me. But I can’t go. Not this time. I promised my wife I’d come home for a few weeks this summer.’

  Cutler snorted. ‘I promised my wife fourteen years ago that I’d come home. She’s not seen hide nor hair of me since. Though I believe my absence hasn’t stopped the old whore producing a child every few years. Better count your children once you’re home, and be sure they’re all yours. Wives can be funny like that.’

  Will stepped back with a laugh and waved him on. ‘Get on with you, villain. I’ve only one daughter, thank God, and a faithful wife. When I’ve as many children as you, I’ll be sure to count them. Until then, I’ll keep my promise and get to sleep in a comfortable bed for a few weeks, instead of a damp field or some nobleman’s stable.’

  Cutler tapped his nose. ‘Aye, and then you’ll have more mouths to feed this time next year, and wish you’d not stopped at home so long this summer.’

  The company rolled by in the early sunshine, three cartloads carrying players and props up towards the northern counties for their summer tour. For all Cutler’s jokes, Will knew he would not fail to rejoin them as they came back down through Coventry and Warwick in July. His reserves of money would be all but exhausted by then, and another season in London would be beckoning. For now though, he thought happily, breathing in the familiar country air he had missed, he was in Warwickshire and almost home.

  A family of speckled wood thrushes were singing gloriously in the hedgerow as Will took the narrow lane at the crossroads that would lead him in a few miles to Stratford. He had not been home for about a year, he realized. The last time he had seen his little daughter Susanna, she had been a tiny scrap of flesh, her red face screwed up in fury, mewling and stinking out the bedchamber.

  He grimaced at the memory, and wondered how Anne had managed with the baby on her own all this time. Though she had his mother to help, of course. She would never have been properly alone, not sharing his parents’ house in Stratford. Guiltily, he remembered promising Anne a place of their own as he left for London. But so far his wages as a player had not allowed him to make such an extravagant gesture. One day, perhaps …

  The small ford at the next crossroads was almost dry, just a trickle for him to step across. The lane swung round to the left. Above the sprawling hedgerows, hot sun beating down on the back of his neck, Will caught a glimpse of a shining spire, then the thatched roofs of timbered houses clustered together in the heart of the town.

  He recalled Richard Arden’s visit to London, and the trouble facing their family after Edward Arden had been executed for treason. Catholic families everywhere were under suspicion, it seemed, even those who had turned publicly to the Queen’s Protestant faith.

  His travelling bag was heavy on his shoulder. He shifted it to the other side, beginning to sweat in the sun.

  Will tried to imagine his stiff-backed father agreeing to his house being ransacked, their possessions turned over by soldiers and the Queen’s officials in search of illicit Catholic reading matter. It was an impossible thought. His father had always been such a proud and private man, a respected tradesman who had sat on the town council for many years. To be held up in public as a suspected criminal must have eaten away at his dignity.

  Will quickened his pace, and could soon smell the sweet and muddy river Avon on the air.

  Almost home!

  Walking through the straggling outskirts of Stratford, Will passed several townsfolk that he recognized, and paused to shake their hands and exchange a few words. He felt their curious stares on his back as he continued on towards the market. It was a small town, and everyone who stopped to speak wit
h him seemed to know where he had been.

  London! There were few in Stratford’s quiet streets who had ever visited that great city, let alone lived and worked there as Will had done.

  At his father’s house on Henley Street, the workshop window stood open, the counter pulled down to invite passing customers. Will bent his head to peer inside, his nostrils twitching at the familiar, burning stink of the treatments his father used to strip animal flesh and hair from the skins, a mixture of urine and cow dung that left them smooth and supple.

  Inside, the workshop was warm, the air stifling. Pushing aside a row of finely stitched kid gloves hanging in the window, Will saw a lanky young apprentice in the doorway to the yard, bent over a vat of skins and holding a long-handled stirrer. The boy was coughing violently, his eyes bloodshot, trying to keep his apron up over his nose as he stirred the vile mixture. Closer by, at the workbench, Will’s father was stretching a freshly cleaned skin to fit the glove mould, whistling beneath his breath as he worked. His father had lost a little weight since Will had last seen him. His hair was thinner and showed more grey, too. But there was no indication from his face or bearing that he was in any kind of trouble, as Richard Arden had suggested.

  Will cleared his throat. ‘Father,’ he said loudly through the open window, trying to suppress the exuberance inside him.

  John Shakespeare looked up in surprise, frowning thick-browed, and their eyes met.

  His father left the workbench and came to the window, staring. ‘Will!’ he exclaimed, wiping his brow. ‘I can’t believe it! The prodigal son returns! But why didn’t you send word you were coming home?’

  They shook hands through the window, his father’s large palm damp with sweat.

  ‘I did send a note a few weeks back. Perhaps it went astray.’

  ‘Well, it’s good to see you.’ His father nodded him towards the locked passageway into the backyard. ‘I’ll have to unbolt the gate. Wait a moment.’

  Stepping into the cool, shady passageway between the house and the workshop, Will threw down his travelling bag and embraced his father properly. He had forgotten how tall his father was, and the thick burr of his Warwickshire accent. Like a child, he rested his cheek against his father’s familiar-smelling jacket for a moment – surprised by how achingly sweet it felt to be back home in Stratford – then straightened.

  ‘How is the family? My brothers and sisters?’ he asked, releasing him. He was embarrassed to hear a boyish choking in his voice. ‘And how are you?’

  ‘Oh, we are all well enough,’ John Shakespeare told him, his own voice a little muffled, then threw open the doorway into the house and called out, ‘Mary! Anne! Come quickly! See who has come to visit us at last.’

  Will glanced at the apprentice, who had closed the lid on the vat and was leaning against the wall, watching him with a vaguely resentful expression. ‘You have new help in the workshop, I see.’

  ‘Aye, this is Edward Bowden,’ his father said, and Will nodded at the lad, who did not move but continued to stare at him. Perhaps he feared Will was back home in order to take his job. ‘I took him on at Michaelmas for the winter rush, and he’s proved useful about the place. There’s never as much trade in the summer, except for the ladies’ gloves, of course. But your mother sends him on errands for the house most days, and I’m even teaching him how to stitch now. He’s not bad, either, though he’ll never make a master glover. Too clumsy for the close work.’

  Will’s mother came out into the passageway, frowning and wiping floury hands on her apron, and gave a sharp cry at the sight of her son. ‘Will!’

  He kissed her on both cheeks and she laughed, staring. ‘It’s the way a Londoner kisses a lady,’ he explained, then embraced his mother properly. ‘I’ve missed you.’

  ‘Come, I know someone who has missed you,’ his father said meaningfully, and pushed him into the doorway to the house.

  Anne stood in the shadows just inside, her blue eyes very wide, a small child balanced on her hip. She looked at Will blankly, her fair hair straggling from under a white cap that sat askew as though it had been too hurriedly pinned in place. There was a streak of soot on her cheek from the oven, and he could smell fresh bread baking in the kitchen behind her.

  ‘Will, you’re back,’ she managed faintly, then looked away from him as though dazzled, into the tender, round-cheeked face of the child, also staring up at him with the wide blue eyes of her mother. ‘Susanna, this is your father. Say “Hello, Papa.”’

  The child gurgled something, and he stroked her cheek wonderingly. So soft.

  ‘Hello, my little daughter,’ he said gently, then rather wretchedly wished his child was not there, that someone would take her away, so he could kiss his wife properly. He looked at Anne’s pursed lips, her downcast eyes, and knew she was furious with him.

  Will frowned and hoisted his bag on to his shoulder again. He was struggling through the various possibilities, confused by what he sensed as his wife’s simmering anger, her lack of a proper greeting. Did he not merit a kiss? He had come home, and this was his welcome. A cold face, and a child in the way of his kiss.

  ‘How was London?’ Anne asked, following him into the house, where he threw down his heavy bag and settled himself at the table as though in expectation of lunch.

  ‘Busy.’

  She played with the child’s fingers, her head bent. ‘It must have been,’ she agreed quietly, ‘for you to have forgotten about us so completely this past year.’

  ‘D … did I not write you letters?’ he asked, and heard himself stammer as he had once done as a boy. It made him angry. ‘Send money home whenever I could? Provide for you and the child?’

  ‘You know I cannot read. It is not enough to hear my husband’s words read out to me, like a sermon on Sundays. And I thought you would call us to London too. I kept a bag packed for the first few months. Then I realized you had no wish to bring me and Susanna to London, that you had abandoned us here.’

  Taken aback by the sudden sharpness of her tone, Will was not sure how to answer. His father disappeared discreetly back into his workshop, and his mother signalled their serving girl to take up his bag and bear it away next door, to the little adjoining cottage his father had given them for their own. His mother followed in the girl’s wake, issuing orders about the freshening of linen and rushes.

  They were alone in the downstairs of the house, just him, Anne and the child. He stared at the child’s downy cheek and could not quite believe she was his. Susanna had been so tiny when he had left; now she had a thatch of dark hair and a few small white teeth that he could see as she beamed at him, waving and gurgling. He remembered Cutler’s jibe about asking his wife who had fathered their children, but set it aside in a second. Anne was not that sort of woman. Fierce and passionate she might be in private, when no one but Will could see, but she was not a whore.

  ‘I could not have brought you to London. I cannot support you there. London is no fit place to house my wife and child: the streets are full of whores and cut-throats.’ He shook his head. ‘I need to know that you and little Susanna are here in Warwickshire, safe in the heart of my family.’

  She raised her head and met his gaze frankly. ‘It is the whores I worry about most.’

  ‘Anne,’ he began, shaking his head, then paused, and felt a little frown tug at his brows. Lucy Morgan.

  Will squirmed against the memory of his attempted adultery, like a fish caught on a hook. He tried to tell himself that the overriding lust he felt for Lucy Morgan was no threat to his love for Anne, and that for a married man to want a mistress was not to disown or dishonour his wife. Such backstreet dealings went on in every town in England, and they were the smooth and easy lies on which most lives were built.

  But when he looked into Anne’s strong and stubborn face, he knew his wife would never agree with him. Her belief in the sanctity of marriage was a cliff against which such neatly thought-out arguments could only ever dash themselves in vain.


  She had seen his hesitation, and her thin brows arched in a question. ‘Well?’

  ‘You have nothing to fear from that quarter,’ he finished flatly, and stood up. ‘Now I’m tired and need to sleep. Does Susanna still cry at night?’

  ‘A little. But I can keep her quiet on the breast.’

  ‘She is not yet weaned?’

  ‘She likes the breast,’ Anne said simply.

  Surprised, his gaze dropped to her breasts. They pushed high and firm against the bodice of her gown, their milk-bloated swell not quite hidden by the cloth she had draped about her neck like a shawl. He wished then that he had not looked at her like that, nor thought of her breasts when she was unclothed, for suddenly he was filled with a desperate urge to make love to his wife, to see her naked once more and feel her body press against his.

  The women had stopped moving about upstairs and the house was suddenly quiet. The silence felt strange after the restless hubbub of London, where no one was private and there could never be a moment of complete quiet, even in the long watches of the night.

  Hurriedly, he closed his mind to thoughts of London. He would not allow himself to think of Lucy Morgan’s dark beauty and quick, light-footed grace. Not here in Stratford, and not in their bed.

  ‘Will you come upstairs with me?’

  Anne stared at his question, then hot colour ran into her cheeks.

  ‘The child,’ she whispered.

  ‘My mother can take her for an hour or two, surely?’ He dropped his voice, knowing that when the house was still like this, every word that was spoken could be heard from one end to the other. ‘I must lie with you.’

  ‘Cannot you wait until tonight?’

  ‘No,’ he said decisively, and saw her eyes widen. He had never spoken to Anne like that before – as a man speaks to his wife, rather than as a boy pleads with his older lover – and he could see that she was surprised and, he hoped, at least a little impressed. ‘It has been too long since we were last … intimate. I am impatient to remind myself why I married you, Anne. Now give the child to my mother and come to bed with me.’