Love Disguised

by Lisa Klein

  Already Will was using foreign words. Meg feared he might lose his purpose while studying this lawyer’s book.

  “Tell me, Will, can a painter work from a description in words or must he see the subject with his own eyes?”

  “Is this a riddle?” he asked eagerly.

  Meg plucked the book from Will’s hand and placed it on the table. “Have you ever been to court or heard a lawyer speak to a judge?”

  Will kept his gaze on the book. “I see your point,” he said. “But I say a man may play a king without living in a castle. Surely he can play a lawyer without being in a courtroom.”

  Perhaps he was right. But Meg was afraid of the unknown realm of the judge. She had seen the outcome of their decisions: a man in the pillory bleeding from his ears, a prostitute in a white sheet standing before the church. Once she had witnessed a hanging on Tower Hill during which Peter had filched several purses from unwary bystanders. But foremost in her memory was the Wood Street jail, the dark, miserable hole where her father suffered without any cause and died without recourse to justice.

  “A court of law is not a mere stage, Will Shakespeare,” said Meg, striving to check her strong feelings. “Feign what you will but remember that a judge in fact sends men to prison. He takes away their freedom—and sometimes their lives.”

  She swept up the empty cups and turned away so Will would not see the tears in her eyes, threatening to fall.

  Chapter 22

  Hewlands Farm, Shottery

  At the dawn of an October day the village of Shottery presented a peaceful aspect. Crofters with their sickles and carts headed to the fields, wearing cloaks they would throw off when the sun had gained strength. Haycocks dusted with frost dotted the fields like pieces in a game of nine-men’s morris. The sheep grazed in the still-green meadows, growing their winter pelts, while cows lowed in the lee of stone fences where falling leaves also gathered. Sleepy housewives swept the dirt from their doorsteps and gazed over their gardens going to seed.

  Anne Hathaway was blind to the day’s glory. With a yoke across her shoulders she picked her way carefully over the rutted ground. Leaves cascaded around her and fell into her milk buckets. The rising sun cast a long shadow behind her that shifted with her every step. At the kitchen door she eased the yoke from her shoulders and sat picking the red and gold leaves from the creamy surface. She was so tired lately. Her whole body ached. Especially her heart.

  She heard Catherine giggling. The sound irritated her like a burr trapped in her stocking. She tiptoed down the garden path and peered through a tangle of briars and wilted roses to see her sister head to head with a young man. So early in the morning! Anne worried about Catherine’s virtue, but what could she say after spending the night with Will herself?

  The fellow turned and Anne saw that it was Gilbert Shakespeare, who had been keeping company with Catherine since Will left for London. He possessed little wit and even less charm, in Anne’s view. And Catherine? She was like a child who forgets a toy as soon as it is out of sight.

  Anne knew why Catherine could so easily shift her affections from Will to his brother. She had not lain with Will. Had not heard him whisper, Let us kiss, and love each other still. These words Anne could not forget. She knew that it was her body Will had loved, her ears he had spoken into, her lips he had kissed. Not Catherine’s.

  She crept back to the kitchen door, leaned against it, and closed her eyes. She asked herself for the hundredth time, Was Will deceived? Or did he recognize me and willingly lie with me? It made a difference to her. It made all the difference in the world.

  Once Anne had seen a biblical play in Coventry about two brothers, smooth-skinned Jacob and hairy Esau, and their father, Isaac, who was old and blind. Jacob covered his body in furs, pretending to be his brother Esau, and tricked their father into giving him the blessing that was due Esau. She thought about that play often and wondered if Isaac was truly deceived. Could he not tell his sons apart by touch or by their voices? Perhaps Isaac knew Jacob was the more deserving brother. As Anne was more deserving than Catherine, who, as her current behavior proved, never really loved Will.

  Anne insisted to herself that she did not regret sleeping with Will. Did not regret the cloak that, like Jacob’s furs, led Will to think she was Catherine. But she did rue the breach with her sister. Catherine had said hateful things to Anne, accused her of being jealous, deceitful, and a thief.

  You do not deserve Will, was Anne’s defense. I know what love is, and you do not.

  Marry an old man instead. Someone your age. Catherine’s contempt was like a dagger.

  Alas, marriage to Will was now out of the question despite their vows, for he had fled to London and no one had heard of his whereabouts since.

  A cat, her belly sagging with unborn kittens, rubbed against Anne’s leg. She sat down and stroked it. “I am so unhappy. Nine people live under this roof. Father’s wife treats me like a servant and expects me to take care of her children,” she murmured to the cat. “I am twenty-six years old. I want my own household. And my own children.”

  Her life was not supposed to be this bleak. Six years ago she had fallen in love with the neighbor’s son, David Burman, a frail fellow with gray-green eyes and brown hair. They first kissed in a meadow beside the River Avon and a year later plighted their troth before their fathers. Anne waited two years for David to save enough so they could be married and set up their own household. They never consummated their love, though David often begged her and she was sorely tempted. But she feared that once she lay with him he might leave her. By denying him she thought she could hold on to him.

  David did leave her. He contracted a fever in the spring and within a week was dead.

  Anne still remembered the sensation of grief. It sucked all life and light into its blackness, like a bog. She had stood on Clopton Bridge trying to summon the strength to jump into the swollen Avon flowing beneath her. If only she had lain with David! If only she had a babe with gray-green eyes to remember him by. If only.

  And so five years of her life were lost, three to unsatisfied desire and two to grief. Then Fulke Sandells, her father’s friend, asked her to marry him but she declined. He was forty, almost an old man. She did not want his or anyone’s pity.

  Then one day she noticed Will Shakespeare. She had known him from childhood. In the interval of her own love and loss he had changed from a schoolboy to a man. He had apparently never heard of her misfortune. In his presence a heavy weight lifted from her shoulders, leaving her heart lighter. She felt herself flourish again and become the young woman who had fallen in love with David Burman. She contrived opportunities to see Will and permitted hope and desire to burgeon within her.

  Yes, she had stolen Will’s love from her sister as Jacob stole Isaac’s blessing from his brother. But she regretted neither the deceit nor the deed. The memory of delight was something she could hold fast to. That and the possibility that she did love Will even if he hated her.

  On one point only was Anne tempted to regret. She hoped she was mistaken in her calculation. All of September and seven days of October had passed, yet she had not bled since August. With sad dismay she asked herself, Have I gambled everything for love and lost again?

  She opened her eyes. She was still sitting by the kitchen door. The household now stirred with footsteps, childish voices, the clang of pots. Sunlight fell across her lap. The cat licked the milk-dipped leaves on the ground.

  Chapter 23

  Will had apparently considered Meg’s worries, for when he met with Mack again, he suggested they observe a session of court. “It was your sister’s advice, which I am glad to heed because she is a very wise and comely wench.”

  “Did we not discuss the perils of flattery but two days ago?” Meg said. “I cannot be moved by praise of my sister.”

  “I speak the simple truth,” said Will. “Now, which way to Westminster?” He was all business today.

  “It is far and we will spend too much t
ime getting there. The chapel in St. Paul’s is closer. Offenders against common morality are tried there.”

  “The bawdy court!” said Will. “I have heard ’tis like a play, such lively scenes occur there. Let’s go.”

  Dozens of idlers crowded the chapel, some munching on bread and cracking nuts. Meg and Will pushed their way onto a bench. A woman charged with slandering her neighbor was being sentenced to wear a bridle to curb her tongue.

  “I knew a notorious scold in Stratford that would not submit but bit her bridle so hard she broke all her teeth. Thereafter no one could understand her ranting and railing.”

  Meg chuckled. “A wayward horse is wiser than she was.”

  Then came a tenant accused of lewdness toward his landlady; his lawyer argued that because his client was drunk, he was not aware of his acts and therefore not guilty.

  “Qui peccat ebrius, luat sobrius,” intoned the judge.

  Will gave a rueful laugh. “That is true, without a doubt!”

  “What did that gibberish mean?” Meg asked him.

  “He who does wrong while drunk must be punished when sober.”

  “Were you drunk when your father’s money was taken from you?”

  “That is not the point in my case,” said Will irritably.

  “Well, if the judge tells me to ‘quee peck it,’ how should I reply?”

  “Neither admit nor deny, but equivocate. Say, ‘Quaeritur, prima facie’—on the face of it, the question is raised.”

  Meg whispered the phrase, trying to commit it to memory. “Kway-it-tour preema fock-ee-ya.” It sounded like a lewd insult.

  The next defendant was a woman accused by her husband of adultery. She bore an expression of such abject misery that Meg’s sympathy was stirred. With no lawyer to plead for her, she raised her hands to the judge and denied that she had ever been unfaithful to her husband. She was interrupted in midsentence.

  “Your Honor, I have two witnesses who will swear that they beheld the defendant in flagrante delicto, in a close, lascivious, and unlawful embrace.”

  “That is the husband’s attorney,” said Will.

  “Assuredly a rogue. Note his shifty eyes,” said Meg.

  “Produce the witnesses,” ordered the judge while he stared at the woman with disdain.

  Meg gasped. Standing before the judge and wearing gentlemen’s finery that belied their baseness were Peter Flick and Davy Dapper.

  Will glanced up from his book. His arm shot out to the side, striking Meg in the chest.

  “Ow!” Meg’s breasts hurt. She hoped Will did not see her cringe.

  “It’s them! What should we do?” he whispered.

  Meg put her finger to her lips. “For now, listen.”

  Davy was calling the defendant a lascivious woman and stamping his satin-booted feet for emphasis. Peter clasped his filching fingers and swore that the plaintiff, Roger Ruffneck, was an upright and faithful man.

  Meg started. She had seen the man in the gargantuan ruff. “All three villains are here in one place!” she said.

  “They outnumber us, Mack.” Will pulled his cap over his eyebrows.

  “We’ll waylay them outside,” Meg whispered.

  The judge was now speaking. “Jane Ruffneck, have you no one to vouch for your … virtue?” He hemmed as if the word was stuck in his throat. Meg heard scornful laughter from the observers.

  Mistress Ruffneck stood without bending. Her self-pity had fled and her eyes flashed with anger. “Who is the man you accuse me with?” she demanded of her husband. “Where is he?” She glared at Peter and Davy.

  Roger masked his villainy with a false face of innocence. Peter tapped his fingers against his leg and eyed the crowd for his next victims.

  “These men all lie,” said Jane to the judge. “But as God is my witness, I am a true wife. I am the one abused by my husband.” She pulled up her sleeve. Dark bruises covered her arm.

  Meg covered her mouth to keep from crying out. She recalled Roger pressing Violetta’s arm hard while attempting to seduce her. She could not count the number of times he had come to the Boar’s Head with lewd women. He, not Jane, was the one guilty of adultery. Meg swelled with fury.

  “A man may rebuke his wife. Indeed it is his duty if she is wanton,” said the judge loudly. “Per curiam, the defendant is guilty. I grant the plaintiff a divorce.”

  A hubbub ensued. Jane Ruffneck’s voice rose over the commotion. “Your Honor, how shall I feed myself and my child?”

  Meg felt herself jostled as the wardens forced the unruly observers from the chapel. “Where is Truth? Whither Justice? They have deserted these proceedings!” Meg heard herself shout.

  Will grabbed her elbow. “Were this a morality play, Mack, lightning should strike all those devils!”

  “It’s not a play,” said Meg, her voice low and steely. “Come with me, Will.”

  In the crowded churchyard Meg threw her gaze from right to left, but it was Will who spotted them.

  “Over there in the cloisters!” he announced. “Ruffneck and his lawyer!”

  Meg advanced toward Ruffneck while beckoning Will to follow. All her attention was on the villain framed by the arch of the cloisters with the monuments to the dead ranged behind him. He was giving his lawyer a purse, saying “I thank you, Weasle, and you also, Peter and Davy.” The face of Death, painted on a stone wall, oversaw their transaction.

  Like an avenging angel she drew her sword and said, “It’s the devil himself dividing the spoils of the innocent among his foul minions.”

  Four sets of startled eyes looked up at her. Roger drew his sword. Weasle clutched the purse to his chest. Peter and Davy glanced at each other and ran.

  Meg decided to let them go. “Give me that purse, Weasle. Give me all your money, your rings, and jewels. Make haste before Death claims you loathsome, lying dogs.”

  Roger made as if to strike her but Meg, quickened with fury, smote him with the flat side of her sword. He dropped his weapon and fell to his knees clutching his side. Meg sheathed her own sword and picked up Roger’s.

  “I took this off you once before, did I not?”

  As soon as the words left her mouth, she realized with horror her mistake. It was Long Meg, not Mack, who had taken the sword the first time, at the Boar’s Head. She hoped that neither Roger nor Will noticed the slip.

  She turned to Weasle, who cringed. “Don’t take my purse, sirrah. It’s my fee. Let me keep my fee!”

  “You put your money where your heart should be. Shall I cut it out of your chest?” How good it felt to let her words flow and shape themselves into fearsome threats!

  Weasle dropped the purse and pulled off his rings as if they burned his fingers. Meg scooped them up, then motioned toward Roger. “Now strip him of his valuables.”

  Weasle stumbled to his knees and groped in his client’s pockets, tugged at his fingers. Roger cursed and tried to shove him away, but Weasle managed to poke him in the eye.

  “What ho! No fighting in the cathedral precincts!”

  Meg turned to see a constable approaching.

  “Arrest him! He broke my ribs,” Roger cried, trying to point at Meg.

  “Sirrah, ’tis only a scuffle among friendly rivals,” Meg said with a laugh. She lifted Roger’s sword. “While I hold this they cannot harm one another.”

  “Help, my eye is bleeding,” moaned Roger.

  The constable took another step toward Meg but she blocked his way.

  “You might get hurt yourself,” she said in a threatening tone. She pulled a gold coin from the purse. The constable hesitated for only a moment before taking it and turning on his heels.

  A shaking Weasle got to his feet and handed over Roger’s purse and jewels. There was a considerable sum inside, Meg thought with satisfaction as she hefted it. “This may help to right a few of your damnable wrongs, Roger Ruffneck.”

  “Now give me back my sword,” said Roger. His ruff was in shreds.

  “Do you want it through y
our leg or in your gut?”

  Roger shrank into himself like a turtle.

  “Now give me the rings you put in your own pockets, thief,” said Meg to the lawyer.

  Weasle produced two large gold rings set with precious stones. “By gog, I’ll sue you.”

  “I’m not afraid of snakes, rats, or weasels,” she said scornfully.

  A grimacing Roger shook his fist at Meg. “I know who you are, Mack.”

  Meg felt courage seep from her sinews. What did Roger know? How had he discovered Mack was not a man? She must not let him call her bluff.

  “You know nothing. This game is not up yet.” It took effort to keep her voice steady.

  “And we know who Long Meg is,” growled Roger. “You can’t hide from us.”

  Meg’s heart jumped but she was ready with a comeback.

  “I know Long Meg well. She is more of a man than you’ll ever be!” As she hoped, Roger looked both insulted and confused.

  “Come, Will, let’s go,” she said, feeling triumphant. She turned but Will had disappeared.

  Chapter 24

  When Peter and Davy ran, Will ran after them. He did not stop to think. He knew only that he could not stand by like an idle lackey while Mack took on Roger Ruffneck. Without a sword he was swift and agile. He had Mack’s pistol securely tucked inside his belt. The desire for revenge pulsed through his veins.

  Will’s mind was working as fast as his legs. What would he do if he caught Davy and Peter? The odds were against him in a fight. He would demand their purses, and if they had twenty-five crowns between them he would take the money and let them go. If they tried to overcome him he would fire the pistol. What if he happened to kill one of them? His dreams would die at the end of a hangman’s rope. He decided he would only threaten to use the pistol.

  Keeping Peter and Davy in his sight, Will dashed through the maze of streets, dodging chickens and small children. Slowly he gained ground. He was close enough to smell the cloying French perfume that trailed Davy like a cloud. He could see the dandy’s boots coming apart, the heels flapping.