Dark Aemilia (18 page)

‘I did not know that.’ I do not even know who she speaks of, but I dare to guess.

‘The executioner, hot from Calais, got his man to catch my mother’s eye, and slashed his blade right through her neck, in that moment. Cut right through the muscle and bone. He did his job well. Her lips were moving even as her head fell down into the straw.’

Now, I truly cannot speak. I cannot breathe.

The Queen presses on, remaining curiously still, as if all her living was in her head. ‘Was that mercy? Do you think? To smite her before she knew, but also before she had finished her prayers? Did she die in grace?’

‘I cannot tell. I pray to God she did.’

‘They said she was a witch. Will God forgive a witch? Is it a mortal sin? There is a place for every creature, for every leaf and blossom of the Lord’s creation. Even beggars. A wild rogue has his position, and an Abraham man, who rants and preaches in his rags. So witches, too, they must have a portion of their own.’

‘That must be so, madam.’

‘I thought to learn the craft, from Dr Dee, but it is harder than Greek or Latin.’ She sucks her finger again, childish. ‘I can read the Tarot. Such pretty cards.’

‘Evil’s in them, madam, if you ask me. I always draw the Devil.’

‘One day, Dr Dee prepared a chart for me. In my privy chamber, just outside this door, I will never forget. And then he
refused to let me see. Later, I found out why. He saw it coming, this terrible duty. That I would be forced to kill my own kind. First Mary Stuart. God forgive me. I meted out to her what my father meted out to my poor mother.’

‘No prince would have done otherwise.’

‘And yet. That is not it… I killed my son. Robert Devereux, my dearest, bastard son. Not one clean blow for him, no! Three strikes of the axe. Mangled and bloodied, in an agony that
I
inflicted on him!’

‘Madam, I –’

‘Dreadful, most dreadful pain and suffering, that, but for me, he need never have endured! My little one, a traitor at my breast. Oh, I shall go straight to Hell! I am burning now!’

I fear she is out of her wits. ‘Your Majesty – madam – you should rest now.’

She looks around her, as if she is unsure of her safety. ‘They say I rule England like a king. But my duty is a prison. Would that I had the other power, that hideous, demonic gift!’

‘What gift?’

‘The greater one. That which makes castles into air, and air into castles. I would have done some mischief then. Sunk the Armada with the foul gale of my hag’s breath. Torn down the Tower walls, and thrown the scaffold to the winds so he could go free, my naughty, upstart boy! Opened up the seven gates of London so he could gallop forth, go anywhere, in peace and freedom.’

‘Oh, madam…’

‘I dream it is so, I still dream it is so.’ She starts. ‘Are we alone? Is Hecate here? She is a greater Queen than I.’

‘We are alone. But, madam –’

‘And did I summon you, or did you come by chance?’

‘You summoned me.’

‘Ah, yes. You live at Long Ditch. You are married to that ape Alfonso.’ She pauses, and squeezes my hand again. ‘I have a
warning for you. That is why I have called you here. It concerns this thing, this matter of witchcraft. Dr Dee has told me something which concerns you…’

A bell tinkles. The Queen frowns. ‘Tell them to go away. I am still their monarch, and I wish to speak to you for longer.’

I open the door a crack, and see Lettice Cooper’s frowning face. ‘Please leave us,’ I say. ‘Her Majesty wishes it.’

‘Isn’t Her Majesty done with you?’ she asks.

‘Done with me?’

‘Address me as “my lady”.’

‘I have told you. My lady. She is not ready.’

‘Would she not care for a drop of rose-water?’ Her words are solicitous, but her tone is ice-cold. Before I can speak, there is an odd sound from the Queen behind me. I turn, and she is trying to rouse herself from her place, but is weighted down by the jewelled robe. One hand is raised, but, instead of words, all that comes this time is a strange cry, like the call of a gull. Lettice Cooper pushes past me, in a rustle of damask and velvet, and I stand back as she soothes the Queen, and offers her rose-water, which Elizabeth declines, turning her head away and pursing her lips tight shut. Then she points to me. Somewhat unwilling, Lettice nods to me. The Queen seems unable to summon her former strength, and stares at me for a moment, her eyes seeking mine as if I could explain a mystery that is puzzling her. She raises her hand again, beckoning me near. I stoop before her, obliged to lean over Lettice and her glistening skirts; she does not shift an inch.

‘Wait…’ The Queen stops.

I lean closer.

‘Sa…’

‘Your Majesty?’

She pulls me forward so that our cheeks touch. Her stench is overwhelming. Then she whispers, ‘Save the boy. By fair means or foul. I could not save mine. Save yours. Guard him.’

News of the Queen’s illness has spread. London is silent, waiting. The ports are closed by government decree, and the dockyards stand empty. There is barely a sound along the alleyways and cat-creeps, or among the mean hovels in the east, or the grand courtiers’ houses at the river’s edge. The sound of hammering has ceased, the church bells have been muffled and even the dogs have stopped fighting. Only the sound of birds remains: the soft song of the woodpigeon, the peewit’s cry, the seagulls calling and squawking, sometimes with the screams of dying babes, sometimes the chatter of Tower monkeys. The weather has changed, too. The snow has melted, and unseasonable sunlight floods the empty streets. Wild flowers have opened their petals, fooled by the early heat. The bluebell fields of Charing Cross are an azure wasteland.

It is a freakish spring, and these are strange days. I know we are willing Elizabeth to die. The golden time is over, and something else must follow. The old Queen seems as ancient as London Bridge itself, as relentless as the river tide, as long-lasting as a Sunday sermon. Now her life, like everything on earth, must end.

This is the subject of Father Dunstan’s homily. He is a miserable, choleric old man, and he has taken the occasion of her illness, and the convenient deaths of several children of Long Ditch parish, as an excuse to ruminate upon the similarity of Flesh to Grass, and, by his religious logic, the need to obey the Word of God. He has chosen as his text, as is his usual habit, one of the
Homilies
most thoughtfully provided by poor Archbishop
Cranmer, who later plunged the very hand that wrote these words into the fire. The subject is ‘Against Disobedience and Wilful Rebellion’ and the method – again one our good priest is wont to use – the brute punishment of boring us to death. Father Dunstan’s borrowed sermons, read out from his weighty book, are often two hours long.

So the droning progresses thus: ‘…
and as GOD would have man to be his obedient subject, so did he make all earthly creatures subject unto man, who kept their due obedience unto man, so long as man remained in his obedience unto GOD… in which obedience, if man had continued still, there had been no poverty, no diseases, no sickness, no death, nor other miseries wherewith mankind is now infinitely and most miserably afflicted
…’

He booms the words over the pulpit at us, daring us to daydream at the white-limed walls. I look down at Henry, who is scuffing his shoe round, making a circle in the strewing-herbs. I frown and pretend to cuff the top of his head, and he squints up at me, half-smiling.

‘…
He not only ordained that in families and households the wife should be obedient unto her husband, the children unto their parents, the servants unto their masters: but also
…’

Alfonso, who was at the gaming tables last night, has his head bowed, his hands clasped before him, as if in prayerful thought.

‘…
the root of all vices, and mother of all mischiefs, was Lucifer, first GOD’s most excellent creature, and most bounden subject, who by rebelling against the Majesty of GOD, of the brightest and most glorious Angel, is become the blackest and most foulest fiend and
…’

Joan is standing a little apart from the three of us. She is staring at the priest, her green eyes giving nothing away. As I watch, I notice that she is rocking to and fro, to and fro, slowly, as if a gentle song were lulling her to sleep.

But then, as if he has observed that we are dozing through his tedious words, Father slams the book shut, and fixes the
congregation with a furious gaze. ‘When Death comes for us, we must make our reckoning. We cannot tarry, we cannot bargain, we cannot name the day we are ready to meet our Maker. We must go when we are called, and there is no way back from the gates of Hell.’ He seems to be staring at me, though I know this is how each person feels in a great crowd, confronted by a lone orator. The priest isn’t addressing me, any more than Burbage aims his monologues at one particular groundling in the crowded Globe.

‘Which of us will live to see Midsummer? Which of us will light a flame for Candlemas? Who will see another winter? Hmm? I ask you? Who can say this?’

Mouths gape. Eyes open. A lap-dog growls. ‘Death is coming – for you, just as surely as for the Great and Good. Do not feel your Prince is nearer to the grave than Thee. There is not one of us that knows that we will live to see another dawn…’

Oh, Lord preserve us. I hate this worship of the dead.

‘They say the plague ships are come from distant places, the Indies, and the Azores. They are docked now, at the quayside, by East India House. None can know what causes us to die when the sickness comes. The barrels are rolled into the taverns. The sailors are gone among us. It is God who sends the pestilence, and only God can save us. Fear him.’

I notice a man on Joan’s left side, at the end of our pew. He is a brown-skinned, wrinkled peasant, a stranger in the parish. He regards the priest with an air of confusion and unease, blinking as if he can’t quite see. He takes a dirty napkin from his leather doublet and mops his face, which dribbles sweat and is mottled purple. Joan catches my glance, and looks at him. Even as she turns, I see the bubo on his neck, yellow as a head of corn. He drops down on his knees. ‘Lord have mercy!’ he shouts. ‘Lord have mercy on us!’ It is the plague cry, the words the doomed daub upon their houses. And he vomits a bellyful of bile right out upon the herbs and rue. The old peasant might have the sweating sickness or the clap; he might have eaten a plate of mouldy mutton – it makes no
odds to me. I see that horrid image conjured by the witches: the dead child still in his bed. My skin goes cold. I take Henry’s hand, push past Alfonso and run to the end of the pew.

‘Do not run from Death!’ shouts the priest.

‘I run towards Life, Father,’ I call over my shoulder. With Henry’s hand clasped firm in mine, I run towards the back of the church.

‘Jezebel!’ he shouts. ‘How dare you speak to your priest in this manner? Remember your place, and be silent.’

It’s almost enough to make you laugh. What fools does God take us for? But I have no breath for laughing; I am turning the great iron catch on the church door, then pushing it open. Outside, it is a bright spring day. I look back and see all the rows of faces, turned towards me, and the priest, pale with anger, leaning over the pulpit.

I wake, suddenly. All is darkness: it is the dead of night. Aptly named. I know the Queen has gone. Did I hear a noise? A cry? A scream? A fired musket? Something has disturbed the blackest hour. I push back the eiderdown, and go to the window. Opening it quietly, I look both ways, up and down our street. The cold night air smokes my breath. There is nothing to be seen. All is silent beneath the stars. The only living creature is a house-cow, tethered opposite. She dozes by the water conduit, sleeping on her feet. Behind me, Alfonso rolls onto his back and sets to snoring louder. I crane my head to look westward, towards Richmond, but I am hemmed in with brick smoke-stacks and tight-sewn thatch.

The good news about the death of the Queen is that Alfonso is employed again. All the Court recorder players are summoned to Whitehall, to rehearse some new tunes for the funeral. They brought her corpse from Richmond in a lead coffin, and she is lying
in state at Westminster Hall to await the orders of King James of Scotland, soon to be King of England. The bad news is that we are still in a state of anxious waiting. The Queen is dead, but where is this new Prince? Alfonso says he is processing down from Scotland in grand style, meeting his northern subjects along the way. So we are suspended in a nowhere place between two monarchs. And, just as spirits walk between Christmas and Twelfth Night, so idle and malicious talk fills up this space. For evil is about us and among us, evil acts are more common than saintly deeds, wicked men prosper and the good starve; angels are frailer in our world than night’s black agents, and in this dark and shifting place of nightmare we must seek protection where we may.

Rumours spring up and run along the streets. They say Elizabeth never saw her own face in her dotage, that her cheating courtiers gave her a magic mirror that reflected only what she had been in her youth. That when at last she saw her true self, aged, unadorned and ugly, she died of grief. (This was false, I knew. It was a twisted version of the truth, which was that John Dee gave her an obsidian mirror, and that she knew most precisely what its powers were, and valued it most highly.) And they say that her body was so racked with vile disease that it swelled monstrously and exploded, bursting forth from her coffin. I think this must be falsehood too, but then remember her swelling fingers and the missing coronation ring.

My husband has had plenty of time to learn his new tunes. But now, the day of her funeral has come.

‘Wife, bring me my tasselled stockings!’

‘They are on the bed, Alfonso.’

‘Wife, my trunk hose! Be quick about it!’

‘You are wearing your trunk hose. Arse-brain.’

‘Wife…’

‘Silence, husband! Put your clothes on, which are spread before you. You may be the master of your music, but you do not command your spouse.’

Off he flounces in a sulky humour. I watch him go, his pretty steps all dainty down the filthy street. I wonder, as I do so, what Will is wearing to bid his Queen farewell, and who has helped him with
his
trunk hose, and found his shirt, and watched him dress. Such thoughts can still confound me, so that time seems twisted and love and hate are twinned. But then Henry comes up behind me. ‘Mother, shall we go and get a good place now? Tom says he will stand in King Street, to get a proper view.’

‘I may go to King Street, young man, but you will stay inside the house with Joan.’

‘But Mother –’

‘But nothing. In this, for once, you will obey me. You know what I have said about the plague. Two dead in this street already. In the parish, seventeen. You must stay at home, and learn your lessons from your hornbook, and behave.’

‘But –’

I raise my hand to him. ‘Henry, if you do not do as I say, I will beat you. I will.’

‘But you are going –’

I slap him hard across his cheek and his eyes are hard and angry.

‘I hate you.’

‘Good. I am your mother. This is as it should be.’

Outside, the streets are filled with a fairground throng of watchers and mourners. The way is blocked with every manner of person, old and young, men and women, ale-wives and aldermen, cozeners and cripples, all herded together, head to head and cheek to cheek. Had I not wished to see her one last time I would keep indoors myself, for I can see that, whatever miasma or mist brings the plague, we are all piling together in a manner most favourable to its passing on.

Anne Flood bustles up, done out like a Venetian courtesan.

‘Come along, come quickly,’ she says. ‘We shall miss the best of it if we don’t make haste.’

I have been avoiding her since Inchbald told me of their arrangement. Now I can no longer hold my peace. ‘What’s this I hear, about how you pay your rent? No wonder you can afford such dainty ruffs.’

She rolls her eyes. ‘Will you judge me, for wishing to survive? Since Mr Flood passed on, I have lived on my wits, and what little he left me.’

‘But lying with Inchbald! Anne! Does he not make you retch?’

‘Certainly.’ She gives me a piercing look. ‘I consider you my good friend, Aemilia. And you told me once that you think of another man when Alfonso fucks you, though you are too close to tell me who it is. If you had to suck a dwarf’s tiny cock to keep yourself respectable, you’d have my pity, not my contempt.’

I shrug, and we walk in silence for a while. This other man, this secret incubus of mine, is Will, of course. My demon lover. For a while, my skin prickles with the memory of lust. Hot lust, cold words. That’s my great love. That’s his legacy.

Then, overcome with curiosity, I ask, ‘How tiny?’

She laughs. ‘I’ve seen bigger on a newborn hedge-pig. Here, take this.’ She passes me half an orange, which I press to my nose to mask the street-stink as we hurry along.

We come to the bottom of King Street and we can see the palace gates. The procession is upon us. First come the
black-robed
bell-ringers and marshall’s men, calling, ‘Make way, make way!’ and clearing a passage through the crowds. They are followed by a procession of poor women – and just a few poor men – marching four abreast, all in black, eyes cast down. Then come artisans, messengers and servants from the Queen’s woodland and stable. Then follow empty carts driven by stable boys, and two of her horses, riderless. One is covered in a black cloth, the other in black velvet. And this is but the start of it. Trumpeters blast their horns at the crowd, to keep us back, and sergeants-at-arms pace along the line.

Now come the standard-bearers, with the great symbols of the Tudor house: the Dragon, the Greyhound, the Lion and the Portcullis. Then the fifty-nine musicians – and there’s my sweet husband, quite the prettiest of them all. Then the apothecaries, physicians and minstrels of the Court. Parliament, the Privy Seal, the gentlemen and children of the Chapel Royal, all singing a mournful tune. Here is Lord Zouche carrying the banner of Cheshire, Lord Herbert with the banner of Cornwall. Next came the Mayor and aldermen of London, and the gentlemen pensioners, with their axes carried downward. On and on they go. Here is the Welsh banner, there is Ireland, and there goes the French ambassador. His train is carried by a retinue of page-boys. It must be six yards long.

Anne is weeping at my shoulder. ‘I shall never forget this!’ she says. ‘The poor Queen! God rest her!’

I see a weeping widow cut a purse, and pretend not to. I see a wet-nurse slap a baby to keep it quiet. I look for Will. I long to see him – and dread the sight of him.

At last we see the hearse itself, a chariot pulled by four horses in trappings of black velvet. As if this were one of her great triumphal processions, the Queen is there in person, a life-size waxwork, as magnificent in death as she ever was in life. The painted effigy reclines upon her coffin, dressed in Parliament robes, with a crown upon its head, and a sceptre in its hands. Above the hearse is a canopy, carried by six earls, with a dozen lesser nobles carrying six banners alongside.