The Dark Lady's Mask (34 page)

Their chamber was lit by a single guttering candle throwing shadows on the walls. Will stood at the open window, his back to her.

“Such an enchanting moon,” she said, taking her place beside him, twining her arm around his. “Soon it will be full. You better not stare at it too long, love, or the servants shall murmur that you're bewitched.”

Her gentle teasing brought no smile to his face. He only stared out into that night, his face immobile. His flesh felt as cold as marble to her touch.

“What is it, my love?” she asked.

She raised his chilly fingers to her lips and kissed them, but he seemed listless and numb, as though his soul had been stolen away. The moon bleached all color from his skin. Only when she touched his face did she feel his tears. But his eyes were frozen wide open. For a moment, he reminded her of a corpse. Even as she shoved that image from her mind, her chest seized up.

“Speak to me, love.”

“The beautiful boy,” he said faintly.

“Harry?” she asked. “How does he fare?”

Will only barked out a laugh that frightened her more than his tears.

She felt herself lurch, as though the floor could no longer support her. “Look at me, I beg you.”

When he finally turned to her, she thought she stood face-to-face with his effigy. Not the living man. In one hand, he clutched the letter. As she gazed at those folded pages, his hand began to shake as though he'd no more control of it than he had of the stars in the heavens. The letter fell to the floor.

What had Harry written to leave Will in such a state? Had Prudence been right—should she have simply allowed the cursed thing to float away on the wind?

“You have to tell me what happened.”

“I have no words.” He looked past her into the darkness. “No feeble words of mine could ever . . .”

He broke off into jagged weeping, covering his eyes with one hand. Though she held him in the circle of her arms, his heart banging against her ear, she couldn't reach him.

“The letter,” she murmured. “May I read it?”

Uttering no protest, he stared at the moon as if to lose himself in that pale inconstant orb.

Kneeling on the floor, she picked up the two leaves of paper. The first page was of fine heavy stock and emblazoned with the Southampton coat of arms.

My dear friend,

Let not your heart despise me for passing on this news from your wife, though it possesses the most terrible weight a soul can bear. My thoughts abide with you. Please make use of my letter of credit should you wish to return to Stratford.

Ever your loving Harry

The heaviness Harry described now pressed down on her. So Anne Shakespeare, her beloved's true and lawful wife, who could neither read nor write, had managed to send her straying husband a message so grave that it had humbled even Harry.

The second page was of much cheaper paper, the letter written by the curate of Holy Trinity Church in Stratford, who had taken illiterate Anne's dictation.
How humiliating,
Aemilia thought,
for Anne to be forced to channel her letter through a clergyman and then through Harry
.

My dear husband,

Some months ago you wrote to us from far Italy. I can scarce picture such a place. I know not where you are now, so I send this letter in care of the Earl of Southampton and pray that it reaches your hand.

It is with a broken heart I must tell you that our son Hamnet has taken ill and died. He now lies buried in Holy Trinity churchyard. Your parents, and Hamnet and Judith Sadler, his godparents, attended the funeral in your stead.

Thank merciful Heaven our daughters Susanna and Judith are well but are sorely grieving their poor dead brother.

Your faithful wife Anne

Anne's words, scrawled in the curate's ungainly hand, left Aemilia drowning in shame.
What have we done?
She imagined the woman weeping at her son's grave, and beside her an empty place where her husband should have stood. Will, had he only known, would have returned to Stratford with all speed. But Aemilia had lured him away to the far side of Europe and written sunny Italian comedies with him while his son lay dying.

“I am so, so sorry,” she began.

She wanted to say more but found she couldn't go on. Her tongue had frozen. Will was right. No words existed to match this loss. While he had been living with her in their beautiful idyll, his only son had died and the funeral had gone on without him.

As she tried to hold Will, he was seized by a fit of silent weeping.
The beautiful boy.

Will's grief filled their chamber with his dead son.

I
N THE MORNING
A
EMILIA
awakened alone. She found Will sitting in the shadowiest corner of the loggia.

“My love,” she said.

Their guests had not yet come down, but Tabitha now appeared with Enrico. Upon seeing Will, the little boy launched himself at him.

“Papa, Papa!” Enrico hugged Will's knees, begging to be lifted into his lap.

Her hand on her mouth, Aemilia watched Will tremble uncontrollably as he had done the night before when he could no longer even hold Anne's letter. It seemed he could not bear the touch of those little hands. Tabitha was too dumbfounded to react as Enrico wailed in confusion, his cries piercing the morning stillness. Aemilia swooped down to take him away.

“Your papa is tired today,” she heard herself say in a too-bright voice. “You must let him rest. Shall we go see the donkeys?”

As Will walked off in the direction of the olive groves, a spell of dizziness forced Aemilia to sink onto the bench he had vacated. Black spots danced before her eyes while her son squirmed in her arms, still calling out for his papa.

“
Cara,
are you so sick in the morning that you can't even smile?” Olivia's face swam before her. “Why do you look so sad? It's not good for the little babe you're growing.”

Aemilia could hardly face her guests in their blameless good cheer. But Olivia was already taking charge, lifting the crying child from Aemilia's lap, hefting him on her hip and covering him in kisses. She summoned Winifred to bring her mistress bread and warm milk with honey.

“What happened to Will?” Giulietta asked. “Why is he wandering about the groves at this hour?”

“He's not himself,” Aemilia said. “The letter brought sad tidings from England. His beloved young kinsman has died.”

“How very sad!” Olivia's eyes brimmed in sympathy. “Ah, then we must cut our visit short as not to burden him. Grief takes its own course. But don't let him grieve too long,
cara.
Though losing a loved one is always terrible, his thoughts should be on you and the new baby.”

Aemilia was too choked to speak.

“A new life to replace a death.” Olivia laid a tender hand on Aemilia's belly.

I
N THE PRISTINE COOLNESS
of the following morning, Aemilia bade farewell to her guests but not before lading their packhorses with casks of
amarone
and olive oil, a bushel of apricots, and a pot of honey.

“Give my love to Francesco and Leandro,” she told Olivia, who clasped her like a mother. Aemilia imagined trading places with Giulietta, becoming a blameless young girl with her whole life before her. Not the woman she had become, shackled with too many lies.

 

N THE FULL GLARE
of the noontide sun, Aemilia found Will hacking at weeds in the kitchen garden with a fury that took her breath away. Clods of earth flew everywhere. A salamander's skull landed at her feet. Caked in dirt and sweat, he reminded her of a grave digger.

What shall we do now?
All the questions she burned to ask him stuck in her throat. In the face of his anguish, she became a tiptoeing shadow, terrified of saying or doing anything to worsen his pain. What hurt her most was how his grief made him turn away from her, not toward her. Why couldn't he let her comfort him? Did he blame this entire conundrum on her? Was she the author of his tragedy?

As the heat rose in shimmering waves, she forced herself to speak. “Will you return to Stratford?” She braced herself for his answer.

“How can I go there now?” he asked her bitterly. “How can I ever face them again? I am fortune's fool. To think I didn't want to return until I had accomplished something. I was wandering the world while my son died.”

H
E WAS SOUL SICK
, her beloved. Grief was a fortress and inside those dank walls he now dwelled. She was locked outside, calling out to him in vain. Though they shared the same table and bed, he was lost to her, utterly irretrievable.

She bade herself be patient. As Olivia had said, grief took its own course, and she could hardly abandon him to his pain.
But don't let him grieve too long
, cara
. His thoughts should be on you and the new baby.
In another five months, she would hold that child in her arms. Would his melancholy be healed by then? Would he be able to share her joy, fall in love with the new life they had created together?

A
UGUST FLAMED LIKE
a furnace, and Paolo muttered of drought. They hadn't seen a drop of rain since June. The laborers and their children trudged back and forth carrying buckets from the spring to water the vines, but the spring threatened to run dry.

“Will this spoil the harvest?” Aemilia asked Paolo.

The grim lines set in the winegrower's face gave her little cause for hope.

“If the spring dries up and there's no rain, we'll have to drag up water from the Adige,” he said, mopping the sweat from his face with the cloth she handed him. “But even if we break our backs hauling water up that slope, the grapes might be scorched.”

Aemilia squinted down at the baking valley where the river ran low in its banks.

“But still we have the olives, do we not?” she asked. “Olive trees require far less water than grapevines, so I understand.”

“If the drought is harsh enough, we will lose most of the olives as well. We must pray for rain.”

She nodded soberly and was about to excuse herself when Paolo gave her a long grave look. “We haven't seen a drought like this in years,
signora.
It could ruin us.”

“What can we do?” She felt a kick inside, as though even her unborn child were succumbing to panic.

Paolo took off his dusty straw hat and lowered his voice to a whisper. “I beg you,
signora,
send your Prudenza back to Bassano. For her own safety if nothing else.”

The hot wind blew up dust that stung Aemilia's eyes. “Why should my servant have to fear for her safety, Paolo?” But she sensed his answer even before he spoke.

“Already before the drought, people whispered that she was a
strega.
Now, when we must pray for our very survival, the neighbors will take justice into their own hands. I won't be able to stop them and neither will you,
signora.
”

“Surely it takes more than gossip to try someone for witchcraft,” she said.

“There is no time to wait for a trial,” he said darkly. “If the drought lasts much longer, they will try to summon the rains by swimming the witch.”

The sweat dripping down Aemilia's back ran cold.

“What do you mean?” Her voice shook in terror.

“They will bind her right thumb to her left big toe, tie a rope around her waist, and throw her into the Adige. If she sinks, she is innocent and they will pull her out, by the grace of God, before she drowns. If she floats, it proves she's a witch,
signora.
”

The heat beat down on Aemilia's head like an anvil.
Swimming the witch.
She had heard of such barbarities taking place in England, the usual outcome being death by drowning for the accused woman, but this was the first she'd heard of such a brutal act being used to bring rain during drought.

When her father was nine years old, he and his brothers were driven out of Bassano because they were Jews. Now that she had finally arrived at what was meant to be her lasting refuge and home, might she, too, be banished because a mob of peasants believed her maid to be a witch? Paolo, of course, was only asking her to send Prudence away. But if the drought continued even after her maid's absence, who might they blame then?

“I will speak to you about this later,” she told Paolo.

Hurrying up the path toward the cellars, she came upon Winifred hanging laundry on the bushes to dry.

“Did I ask you to do the laundry?” Aemilia snapped, she who never raised her voice to her servants.