The Fool's Girl (21 page)

He did not stir as she took the folly stick from him, his arms closing on empty air. She carried it back to her room and twisted the carved cap to remove the top of the skull. The shewstone lay inside like a translucent egg. She took it out carefully and went over to the window. The faint silver light struck through the glass, igniting a golden glow deep in the milky blue depths of the stone. Violetta stood quite still, muttering an incantation to Hecate, goddess of the moon, queen of the witches. Ask, and she would answer. The stone hadn’t worked here before, but this night belonged to her. Perhaps it would do now. The moon shone down on all.

At first she could see nothing, but Violetta knew she had to be patient, continue looking and the blankness would pass. Then she saw her mother smiling out at her. She felt the touch of her fingers on her cheek. Violetta was startled; she hadn’t been thinking about her mother, but the stone showed many things, not all of them present in the forefront of the mind. Perhaps she was there all the time.

Violetta felt the old sensation, of being in the scene and out of it, like in a dream. She was standing on the shore now, like she had done as a young child. Her mother said no word, just turned away from her, towards the sea. She was wearing a thin summer shift, gathered at the shoulder. She undid the clasp and let her clothes drop from her on to the sand. Then she dived into the waves. It was night-time. The sea shone black and silver, like a tarnished shield. She swam away from the shore with long, strong strokes, out into the bay. Violetta was looking down at the scene now, as if she was a bird flying high above the wrinkling waves. There was a ship anchored in the next bay, a pirate vessel, its sails as red as blood. A long boat waited, close to the headland; it began to slip through the water. Antonio, Sebastian’s friend, the Uskok pirate, stood in the prow. She saw the glint of steel from the rings in his ears, his trailing mustachios, his iron-grey hair spread over his shoulders like lengths of twisted wire. One blow from his long, curving oar and the swimmer was stopped in her motion. Her pale body glimmered as it slipped beneath the surface waves and drifted down to the black depths. The boat rowed back. The ship flew the flag of Senj. She had been killed on the orders of her own brother. Violetta turned away from the stone. Some things you do not have to see to know.

When she turned back, the scene had changed. She was in a chapel, small and intimate, Mass was being said by a priest. Beneath the ornate vestments, Violetta recognised Malvolio. He was served by the thin young Jesuit. The congregation was small. Those at the front were nobly and richly dressed, with servants and people of a lower sort at the back. The atmosphere was tense and furtive. Violetta suddenly knew that this was an English house, where to hear Mass was against the law and to serve it was treason.

The heads were bent and devout. Sir Andrew was sitting in the front row. Violetta looked along from him and found Stephano and Guido. A lady sat between them. She wore a gown of rose brocade, slashed at the sleeves and all embroidered in silver. Her thick wheaten hair was caught up under a caul of gold netting, decorated with pearls. Violetta did not have to see her face; she could tell that she was beautiful by the colour of her hair, the narrowness of her waist, the set of her shoulders, the richness of her clothes. They were sitting close, so close as to be actually touching, even though their eyes were closed, their fingers locked in prayer. Near to her sat Lady Francesca, head bowed, similarly devout. She appeared somehow diminished. Her elaborately coiffed hair looked thin and lustreless, her slender frame merely bony, her pale allure insipid. Her carefully conjured beauty had been quite eclipsed by the girl’s youth and bloom.

Violetta’s attention was caught by a movement from the priest as he turned to face something that had been placed on the altar between the candles: a domed reliquary, intricately worked, chased and embossed to show the scenes of the Epiphany, silver on gold, bright with enamel and gleaming with precious stones. The doors were closed, but Violetta knew that inside lay the holy vessel that had contained the myrrh used to embalm the body of Our Lord.

What was it doing here? It had been put in great jeopardy: taken from its rightful place, brought to a country that counted such things as baubles, with no more worth than the value of their metal, to be venerated in a chapel no bigger than a closet.

Violetta looked on as fair head leaned towards darker and the two whispered together under the breath of prayer. She remembered those games well. Their promises to each other had not been blessed by the Church, but in Violetta’s mind they were just as abiding. Had he not held her in his arms, whispered of his love as they walked by the soft flowing Thames? Had he not pledged first his help and then, taking her in his arms again, himself? They would take the blessed relic back to Illyria; they would return in triumph; they would be married in the cathedral and their true love would make up for their parents’ failures. They would restore peace and prosperity to their country and rule as one. Had he not said all that to her only a few days ago? Was he betraying her with the daughter of the Venetian Ambassador, sitting so close a knife could hardly be fitted between them? Malvolio had insinuated as much. He knew how to wound, and he knew too that truth cut deeper than lies. Stephano had been all on fire for them to be married, to go to the Ambassador and be restored to Illyria by Venice’s power. How much did he want to be Duke? Feste had been right to doubt Stephano. He had been right and she hadn’t believed him. Who was the fool now?

She turned away, no longer able to see. Maria had warned her not to trust the stone, but what did she know? Violetta blinked the tears away and then returned her gaze, clear-eyed, the showing in the stone replaced by her own vision. The relic would be returned to Illyria, set in its rightful place in the cathedral there. Malvolio would be punished for what he had done, even if she had to do it with her own hand. As for Stephano, if he thought that he could replace
her
, Violetta, with a Venetian whore, he could think again. She would rule as the Duchessa, and she would rule alone.

She stood rapt, lost in her thoughts, roused only when the cock crowed. She opened her eyes to the first grey light of dawn. The stone in her hands was once again just that, a stone. She looked out to see a young man standing in the yard below, looking up at her window. She thought she was still dreaming. Stranger by far than anything that the stone had revealed to her. It was if she had conjured him. One last gift from Hecate.

‘Come down!’ he mouthed, his arm beckoning. ‘Come down!’

She pulled her gown over her head and ran barefoot to meet him, giving the folly stick back to a sleeping Feste on her way.

She approached Stephano slowly. She reached up and touched his face, hardly trusting that he was real.

‘I saw you. I saw you with another,’ she said when she could find her voice.

‘In a dream?’ he asked.

‘Yes, in a kind of a dream.’

‘Who was the lady?’

‘I only saw her from the back, but I could tell that she was beautiful,’ she said reluctantly. ‘Richly dressed with wheaten hair caught up in a golden net all embroidered with pearls. You were in a chapel sitting close to her.’

‘Dreams can be false. At least that one was.’ He laughed. ‘That is Christiana, the Ambassador’s daughter. She’s promised to Guido. If I was sitting close, he was sitting closer. There’s not much room in those chapels – they’re hardly bigger than cupboards.’ He took her hands in his. ‘I’ve ridden all day and all night to find you. I am true to you and you only.’

‘What I saw . . .’ She looked away from him. ‘It chimed with something Malvolio said.’

‘Malvolio?’ Stephano frowned. ‘When did you see him?’

‘He was in Oxford,’ Violetta said. ‘He took me captive, him and Sir Andrew. Feste rescued me. Tipped them out of the carriage into a mire.’

‘So
that’s
what happened.’ Stephano smiled. ‘They tried to twist it about, said they had been set about by rogues, not a clown and a girl.’ His face grew serious. ‘Don’t believe any foulness that comes from his mouth. He takes delight in hurting people – you said so yourself.’

‘Don’t let’s talk about him now. It’s May morning. They have a custom here . . .’

She took his hand and they walked out into meadows heavy with dew. The sun made every blade glisten, as if each one was studded with crystal.

They went up to the ridge behind the village. The air was quite still, with no wind to chill the skin. Violetta stood between the land and the sky and closed her eyes. The strengthening sun held the promise of warmth during that day, and in all the days to come. She breathed in and felt as though she had drunk a great draught of fine Rhenish wine. The air was heady with the scents of earth, trampled grass and pollen, green growing things. She held Stephano’s hand and did not let go of it. He drew her to him and they kissed as larks rose about them and the belling call of the cuckoo welcomed in the spring.

They met other couples coming from the woods laden with armfuls of blossom and garlands of wild flowers: jacinth, cowslips, oxslips, fritillary, lady’s smock and buttercups. Violetta and Stephano joined them. They came back together, bearing boughs of May blossom for the innkeeper to decorate his lintel, garlands for the horses and wagon.

‘Where have you been?’ Maria demanded. ‘I’ve been looking for you everywhere.’

‘It is May Day morning,’ Violetta replied. ‘I have been out in the fields collecting flowers. It is the custom.’

Stephano had left her to find Master Shakespeare. Violetta had wandered out into the yard, feeling dazed, strange, detached from the bustle going on about her.

‘For unmarried maids to go to the woods with men before the sun has fairly risen?’ Maria frowned. ‘Is that what they do here?’

‘So it seems. They go out to pick flowers.’

‘Is that what they’re calling it now?’ Feste chipped in from the back of the cart.

He had been listening to the conversation with interest while munching on bread and bacon.

Violetta looked at him. ‘That’s what we were doing. Gathering blossom and plucking flowers for garlands. They say it is good luck.’

‘I bet they do!’ Feste cackled. ‘There was plucking going on, I’d wager, and not just flowers. I wonder where Stephano is on this bright May morning.’ He cupped a hand to his ear. ‘Does he hear the cuckoo, d’you think?’

‘That’s enough from you, Feste!’ Maria scolded. ‘You are no more than a vulgar, bawdy mischief-maker. Go your ways. Find something useful to do!’

‘Vulgar? Bawdy? Mischief-maker?’ Feste threw the rest of his bread to the dogs in the yard. ‘I’m a jester, mistress. That’s why folk pay me. It’s my job!’

Violetta laughed. They hadn’t seen Stephano yet.

‘I don’t know what you are laughing about.’ Maria turned on her. ‘I’m the nearest thing you have to a mother, so I will take the liberty. He’s a fine young fellow, no mistaking that. But he’s a player, with a girl in every town and hamlet, I shouldn’t wonder, and who knows how many in London. He’s not for you. Do not forget who you are and that you are promised.’

‘You think I was with Tod?’ Violetta laughed again. ‘Oh, Maria!’ She took her hands. ‘It was Stephano!’ She turned to Feste. ‘And yes, he did hear the cuckoo. So did I. We heard it together. Up on the ridge.’

‘Lord Stephano!’ Maria’s face was transformed. ‘Here? Now?’

‘Yes. He’s inside talking to Master Shakespeare. He rode all night to get here.’

‘Well, that changes things.’ Maria tore off her apron, tidying her hair as she made for the inn door.

Feste hopped off the back of the cart.

‘Rode all night to pick flowers? Now I’ve heard everything.’

Will was talking to Stephano, but the boy was hardly listening. He had given a good account of himself, the information he brought was valuable, but his first intent was to be with the girl. His eyes kept straying to the window to catch a glimpse of her, or to the door to see if she was entering the room. Will had seen them returning together, laughing, arms linked, Violetta’s hair laced with flowers, the boy’s dark head crowned with buttercups. He had not seen her look like that before. She looked younger, all the worry and care gone from her face. Yet older too. If the girl was the image of her mother, then Viola must have been very beautiful.

The lad had followed them from Oxford, riding through the night, yet he looked as fresh as if he had just risen from his bed, while Will’s head ached from the night before and his back pained him from sleeping on hard boards and a thin mattress. He’d crossed the great divide, begun the long slide from youth to age. He thanked Stephano and let him go out to find his girl. They were young. Let them enjoy it while they could.