His Dark Lady

by Victoria Lamb

  When her ladies came hurrying in to the sound of her weeping, they found Elizabeth bloodied and inconsolable, doubled over on the stone flags like a woman who has just received the news of her husband’s death.

  Two

  IT WAS STILL a good hour shy of the afternoon’s performance at the Theatre and the narrow street was crowded with fruit sellers, potmen, whores, ladies in their finery, horses and carts, soldiers in search of a good time before they had to leave for the conflict in the Low Countries, and a turbulent crowd of commoners come to Shoreditch for their entertainment. This sometimes meant fights, particularly among the young men. Even as Will Shakespeare leaned against a barrel of ale by the playhouse entrance, studying an old play script he had been rewriting, he saw a skirmish break out between two bands of youths opposite his vantage point.

  Men with stout staves came hurrying down the street, shouting ‘Order, there! Keep the peace!’ and the youths darted at once down alleys and into shop doorways, leaving the street in disarray.

  ‘More trouble?’ Burbage muttered, coming out of the theatre entrance to see what the commotion was. It was dim inside the theatre, and he held up a hand, squinting across the street in the autumn sunshine. ‘These fights will get us closed down. After last year’s riot, they’ve been making a note of every disturbance outside the Theatre or the Curtain. I tell you, Will, they’re looking to shut us down.’

  ‘Now that would spark a riot!’ Will clapped him on the shoulder. ‘You’ve nothing to fear, Burbage. Look at this unruly lot. Whores, thieves and vagabonds, or young men looking to spill some blood. The city fathers want them out of the streets of London as much as you want them in your theatre. Even if they closed you down for a few days, the clamour for the Theatre to reopen would deafen all of London.’

  Burbage laughed. ‘You’ve a silver tongue there, Will. Do you use it on the whores?’

  ‘I’m too busy for whores,’ Will pointed out. Drily, he held up the half-finished play script he’d been annotating, heavily scored across with scribblings and arrows. ‘Nor can I afford such pleasures.’

  ‘Help me move this inside, would you? It’s blocking the doorway.’ Burbage indicated the full barrel of ale; together they rolled it gently through the door and into a dark corner inside, then came back out into the sunshine. ‘If you change your mind, I’ve a young girl back at my place who’s keen to play two men at once.’

  Will grinned. ‘I would have thought you’d have no end of takers for that.’

  ‘She asked for you.’

  ‘For me?’ Will was astonished, then amused. ‘I hope you told her I’m a respectably married man with children?’

  ‘I don’t think she’d care if you had ten wives and fifty offspring, she’d still want to play “ride a cock-horse” with you. Though I have to admit, Will, I forget you’re married sometimes. I’ve never even met this mythical wife.’

  ‘Nor shall you,’ Will said fervently. ‘Anne’s a country girl, born and bred in Warwickshire. I’ll not bring her to London to die of the pox within a month.’

  Burbage grunted, and wiped the sweat from his brow with the back of his hand. ‘So how many children do you have now?’

  ‘Three.’

  The theatrical raised his eyebrows. ‘Three? When did you have time to engender so many? You spend most of the year in London, and the rest touring. Or is there some other fine fellow up there in Warwickshire, playing the good husband to your wife and keeping the bed warm for you?’

  Will felt his fists clench at the suggestion that some other man might be bedding his wife while he was in London. His temper rose, though he knew it was just one of Burbage’s jests. All the theatricals made such jokes, it meant nothing. Burbage was a crude man, with a crude sense of humour, and would have thought little of being cuckolded himself. Yet still Will felt his face go red, and fought to control his anger.

  ‘I had a daughter, Susanna, before I came to London,’ he muttered, ‘then twin children, born only this January.’

  ‘Two sons?’ Burbage asked.

  ‘A son and a daughter,’ Will said shortly, and stared down at the play script. He disliked talking about his home life when he was in London. Anne and their little children, Stratford, the cramped and smoky cottage on Henley Street: it felt like another life to him when he was here. It was not real, but more like one of the stories he liked to cobble together as he tinkered with old play scripts. ‘Judith and Hamnet.’

  ‘So you have a son now.’ Burbage nodded approvingly, and spat on the dried mud of the roadway. ‘That’s all that matters, Will. A son to carry on your name and protect the family after you are gone.’

  ‘I’m in good enough health, thank you,’ Will said sharply. ‘And the boy’s not even a year old yet.’

  ‘But he’ll grow, my young friend, mark my words. A few years and you’ll be wondering where the time went. Aye, and reaching in your purse to buy him his first whore! Now I’d better make sure the scenery’s in place for the first act. Though a cup of ale first will set me up for the afternoon, I think.’ Burbage laughed, and turned to go back inside the Theatre. He looked over his shoulder at Will, who was still studying the play script. ‘You coming?’

  ‘Soon,’ Will promised him. ‘I have to finish these changes while they’re fresh in my head.’

  Burbage shrugged. ‘It’s good to improve the old plays, but I’ve told you, write me something new and I’ll pay you double. Something the crowd has never seen before. A new play will earn you more than this constant knitting up and embellishing of ancient history.’

  Will felt uneasy at the thought of trying to put coherent ideas for new work down on paper. It was so much easier to keep rearranging the history plays that were most popular with the people.

  ‘The crowd like the old plays,’ he said stubbornly.

  ‘Aye, that they do, but they’re starting to get restless. Everything these days has to be new.’ Burbage raised his head to the sky and sniffed. ‘Can’t you smell it? There’s a change coming. Did you hear about Philip Henslowe? He’s getting money together to build a new playhouse down on Bankside. They’re going to demolish some of the brothels to make way for it, then it’ll go up in a year or two. And then what shall we do? They already have bear-baiting and a bullring on Bankside, and most of the new brothels seem to be setting up there, too. In another year or two, Shoreditch will be empty and the whole of London will be crowding the playhouse on Bankside instead.’

  Will could not deny the truth of that. He had been to Bankside on many occasions, and enjoyed the thriving atmosphere about the dog fights and bear-baiting pits, the brothels with pretty young girls standing in the doorways, and the new building work going up everywhere. It was a natural place for such entertainments, drawing in thousands of visitors travelling into the city from the south, and showing them what the ungoverned fringes of London could offer before they crossed the river. He would not wish to live there, preferring the now-familiar streets of Shoreditch, but he could see its appeal to the crowd.

  ‘So move,’ he suggested. ‘Take the playhouse across the river.’

  ‘Rebuild the Theatre on Bankside?’

  ‘Why not?’

  Burbage ran a hand through his hair. ‘This is a young man’s game, and I’m not young any more. Well, the ale waits,’ he muttered, and disappeared inside the playhouse.

  Will returned his attention to the play, but found it impossible to think now that Burbage had set up fears and suspicions in his mind.

  Could he be sure the twins were his own offspring?

  His father had written to him in London in the autumn, telling him that Anne was pregnant again and the child expected in spring, which fitted the dates when he had been home in Stratford. But then the birth had come early, and it had been the shock of twins, not a single child. He had hurried home at once to see Anne in Stratford and attend the baptism, fearful that the babies would sicken and die before he could reach them, for they had been born so early. Anne had been we
ak and grey-faced, his mother and a wet-nurse caring for the babies while she recovered slowly from the birth. But the twins themselves had surprised him with their pink skin and robust health, crying lustily all night while he was there – until he began to wish himself back in London.

  Was it possible they were not his children?

  Seven months between his visit and the birth.

  Will stared down at the thick dried mud under his feet, his fist clenched on the play script.

  His mother had laughed at his fearful expression as he had gazed at the babies’ tiny, swaddling-wrapped bodies, and had told him not to worry, they were strong and healthy enough, that twins were often born early. He had believed her without question. But now, with Burbage’s joke ringing in his ears, he was back to counting the months on his fingers again.

  Had Anne been unfaithful to him last spring? Could the twins be the product of another man’s seed?

  Looking back, he remembered how Anne had urged him so often and so persuasively to lie with her, to put another child inside her before he left, that he had eventually agreed, and taken great pleasure in doing so. But could it be that Anne had already known she was pregnant by the time of his visit, and had had to hide her shame by ensuring it could be her husband’s child?

  And to think he had sworn to himself never to see the beautiful Lucy Morgan again. Never to touch her again, nor any other woman or whore, but to stay faithful to his wife alone.

  A memory flashed through his head of his father’s new apprentice. The lad had been watching him and Anne sitting together in the little herb garden behind his father’s house, a few days before he had left for London. Will had been reading out a poem to Anne as she cradled little Susanna in her arms, a poem he had written specially for his wife, for it played on her maiden name, ‘Hathaway’. Reaching the end of the poem, Will had glanced up and seen the apprentice gazing at them, and the lad had hurried back into the workshop.

  Now that Will thought about it, there had been something strange in the young man’s face. Something akin to jealousy.

  His father’s apprentice!

  A boy steeped in the foul stench of the workshop, barely a man, and to think of such a fool easing himself inside his wife …

  Will closed his eyes in bitter, shaking fury. Yes, there was a change coming. He could prove nothing, and to make such an accusation in public would only drag his family further into disgrace in Stratford. But he could watch his son as the boy grew, and look for signs that he was not his son but another man’s.

  Meanwhile, he would do what he had been dreaming about for over a year now and only put off out of loyalty to Anne. He would serve out the rest of this year with Burbage and his company, then try to get a permanent place with the Queen’s Men.

  It would mean disguising his Catholic roots, of course. The Queen’s company was made up of zealous Protestants, eager to travel England bearing a message of Protestant faith and a love of Queen Elizabeth to the people. But if Will could somehow avoid admitting that he was a member of the disreputable Arden family, such a sacrifice would be worth it. For as one of the Queen’s own players, he would have better and more frequent access to the court – and to Lucy Morgan.

  Three

  ‘THE CEILING SLOPES here, Your Majesty. You will need to stoop a little, I fear.’

  ‘I remember the low ceilings,’ Elizabeth replied in a hollow voice, and bent her head.

  Walsingham had led her uncomfortably deep inside the Tower of London, far from the sombre but spacious suite of rooms in which she had been kept during her sister Mary’s reign. The walls of the corridor dripped with water, and the space between them was so narrow, her gown brushed the damp stones on either side as she walked.

  She shuddered at the memory of her own unhappy time in the Tower. Nor could she forget that her own mother had ended her days here, out on the windswept green where the glossy ravens strutted and waited for blood. Today she did not wish to think about the anguish Anne Boleyn must have suffered in those last hours, though she had often considered it in her darker moments. If only she had been older, she might have been able to comfort her condemned mother in some way. But she had been so young at the time of the Queen’s execution, only two years of age and unable to understand why her pretty mother was no longer there to kiss her goodnight.

  To await one’s death in this terrifying place! It was a fate that should be reserved only for the worst of traitors, she thought, and hoped she would never have cause to put a noblewoman to death in such a way.

  Elizabeth drew her cloak closer, the hood hiding her face. There were guards up ahead and she did not wish to be recognized. ‘What is the prisoner’s name?’

  ‘Gilbert Gifford. My spies tell me he is of an English Catholic family, most of whom live overseas, where they plot and talk endlessly against Your Majesty.’

  ‘An old story,’ she muttered.

  ‘But a dangerous one. I believe Gifford studied for the Church for a while in Rome, then was expelled for some perceived weakness of character. Undeterred, he travelled back through France and secured a place at the Catholic seminary in Rheims. There he was made deacon, and received letters of encouragement from that Welsh traitor Thomas Morgan, who should by rights have been brought home long ago for his treasonous dealings, but who remains free to peddle his views in Paris.’

  ‘So this young Gifford works for Morgan? Why have you brought him here to the Tower?’ she asked, frowning. ‘I thought he was not to die.’

  Walsingham had stopped at the iron-barred oak door of the cell. He turned to wait for her, holding the torch high. ‘Nor will he, if the lad is wise and chooses to cooperate with us.’

  ‘He will not be wise, you may be sure of it. Not if he is a true Catholic.’ One of the guards glanced at her curiously, and Elizabeth lowered her voice to an urgent whisper. ‘These Catholics are stubborn. They will grasp any chance at martyrdom.’

  Walsingham shook his head, his expression grave. ‘I hope and pray that you are mistaken, Your Majesty. I have not brought him here to die, but to see what horrors could befall him if he refuses my offer.’

  ‘What offer?’

  ‘His life, in return for his service.’ With his customary caution, Walsingham ordered the listening guards to move further down the corridor, then spoke quietly in her ear. ‘Majesty, you must forgive me for bringing you here tonight. I know these walls held you prisoner before you were Queen. But it is imperative that we persuade Gifford to turn in our favour. I believe the sight of Your Majesty, coming to him at night in such a terrible place as this, may inspire some last spark of English loyalty in his heart, and convert the man safely to our side.’

  A hint of anger flickered in her voice, lit by some memory of fear. ‘I am not in the habit of converting souls, sir, and this is a dreadful place for any man, whether he be Catholic or not. What is his crime?’

  ‘We have long known that your cousin Mary yearns to depose you and place the English crown on her own head. But we have never been able to come by any strong evidence of this, nor any letters in her own hand which could link her to such endeavours against your throne. This young priest Gifford landed at the port of Rye a few days back. When he was searched, secret letters were found on his person.’ Walsingham looked at her. ‘Letters addressed to your royal cousin Mary at Chartley House, from certain exiles in France whom we believe to be mounting a new plot against you.’

  ‘There is no law to prevent them from writing to my cousin, only one to bar her from replying in kind,’ she pointed out caustically. ‘How does this prove anything?’

  ‘We have been working on a new method of “helping” your cousin to smuggle letters in and out of Chartley, so that we may read them before they pass on to their destination. It has not been possible, before now, to achieve this, since we did not have the cooperation of any of her secret messengers.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘You must persuade this Gilbert Gifford, Your Majesty, that to serve you a
nd England would be far preferable than to continue serving as raw meat for the hot irons and other instruments of the torturer Richard Topcliffe, who awaits us within.’

  ‘Topcliffe? That monster?’

  ‘I am afraid so, Your Majesty.’ Walsingham inclined his head regretfully. ‘Master Topcliffe serves you keenly. And though I deplore his methods as barbaric and inhuman, I cannot deny that he brings results.’

  He signalled the nearest guard, who drew back the iron bolts and opened the door to the cell. The guard’s gaze swept Elizabeth’s face, then he dropped hurriedly to his knees. No doubt many came through the Tower in disguise, she thought. And some who came this way would not leave the place alive.

  The narrow cell stank of blood and excrement, and was lit by two torches, burning in brackets above their heads. She recognized Topcliffe at once, standing by the brazier, his gloating expression repulsive to her. But Walsingham was right. Topcliffe’s cruel methods did bring results, and had already uncovered many Catholic priests who, if left unpunished, would have converted countless more Englishmen to the Roman faith. And since all English Catholics ever seemed to want was a Catholic monarch on the throne, the deaths of such men by public execution had become an unpleasant necessity.

  Yet if Walsingham could snare Mary and expose her treason with written evidence, it could mean an end to these endless plots.

  The unfortunate young man had been stripped of his clothes, and was now wearing nothing but a blood-stained cloth about his groin. His wrists had been manacled to a bar so high above his head, his thin arms were stretched beyond their natural capacity, and his feet could barely touch the floor. He had no beard, though his chin showed a few days’ growth. Elizabeth thought he was tolerably handsome, but for his weak mouth. Across his pale body were red lines and marks where he had been whipped, and where irons had been put to him, still hot from the brazier.

  As they entered the room, the prisoner’s eyes opened and his gaze moved swiftly from Walsingham to Elizabeth. There was terror in his face, and a lack of hope.