The Fool's Girl Read online

‘Perhaps we should leave.’ Violetta looked at Maria. ‘Then you would not have to lie to him, and Sir Andrew will find a priest for Sir Toby when . . . when the time comes for that.’

  ‘What will you do?’ Maria took Violetta’s hands in hers. ‘Where will you go? No. I have offered you my hospitality. I wish it were better, but my home is your home for as long as you stay here. We’ll make shift when it comes to it.’ She laughed, but there was little mirth in it. ‘There’s always Sir Topas. I worry for you.’ Her grip tightened. ‘Not for us. Did you see Master Shakespeare? Did you speak to him?’

  ‘We met him,’ Violetta said.

  ‘And? Did you tell him your story?’

  ‘Part of it,’ Violetta answered. ‘But there was another man in the inn, overhearing, and then Master Shakespeare had to leave.’

  ‘Will he help you, do you think?’

  ‘We didn’t get as far as asking.’ Violetta looked away from the hope and enquiry in Maria’s face. Sometimes her plan seemed barren, even to her. ‘But what if he denies me? What will I do?’

  ‘We’ll just have to convince him.’ Maria squeezed Violetta’s hands, trying to comfort her and allay her fears, just as she used to do all those years ago when she was nurse to her. ‘If we can get him here, if we can talk to him, we’ll tell him about Illyria, how it used to be. He won’t deny you when he knows the whole story. How can he? Now, you look tired. You should go to your bed. We’ll worry about Master Shakespeare in the morning.’

  .

  6

  ‘That that is is’

  Will took off his doublet, loosened the neck of his shirt and poured himself a mug of ale from the barrel he kept in the corner, ale brewed at home and brought down for him from Stratford by Will Greenaway on the weekly wagon train. He’d ended up going back with Forman after all. Now it was late and he had no work done. He lit more candles and sat at his table. The room seemed warmer by candlelight; shadows masked its emptiness. He liked this time of night. It was the time when the city stilled itself and it was possible to hear both close and distant: the calls of the wherrymen down on the river, the churning of the waterwheels at the sides of the bridge, a man’s shout, a woman’s laugh, cats fighting, a bear’s groaning growl from the bear garden. Far away, a dog was barking; much nearer, in the street below his window, a couple were making love against the wall of the Clink.

  He often wrote at night, the days being too full of other business. It seemed easier to breathe the air. The stink of the city abated and it was possible to detect the salt tang as the tide changed, or the cleaner scent of the river water that had flowed past reed and willow on its way to London. The smell reminded him of Stratford. He had been in the city for more years than he liked to think about, but he still missed his home, particularly now when the year was finally turning towards spring and the trees growing green with new leaf, particularly today. It’s home I long to be, home for a while in my own country, where the oak and the ash and the pretty willow tree, are all waiting there in my own country. The snatch of song chided him. After Christmas the weather had made travel difficult, but he must go home soon. His father was sick, not expected to see the year out, according to Anne, and he wanted to see how the work on his new house was progressing. Anne was a strong woman and very capable, but it was not fair to leave everything to her.

  Perhaps he would go when this play was done, or he might take it to work on there. Sometimes he wrote better in Stratford, away from distractions. He opened his desk box and took out what he would need, using the small sharp penknife to cut a new nib into a goose-feather quill. He had plenty to do. He looked at the sheaf of untidy pages that made up the play he was reworking, cross-hatched with overwriting, scored with crossings-out. The fair copy was piling up very slowly; his Danish prince would have to wait for his first outing, however impatiently.

  Will was a part-owner in the Globe and involved in everything, sharing the management of the company with Burbage, writing the plays, acting if need be. The present piece had to come first: changes to tomorrow’s performance. He pulled the play book for As You Like It towards him, but still he did not write anything. He sat musing, brushing the feather, trimmed down into a V shape like an arrow’s fletching, against his bearded cheek.

  Finally, he took out his table book. It was the place where he caught ideas, lines of verse, snippets of conversations he heard, before they had a chance to flee. He dipped the quill in the inkwell and began to write. He had to note down the story told him by the girl and Feste, had to clear it from his head before

  he could start anything else. There was more to be known, Forman had hinted as much, but he would start with the prelude to the girl’s own story: her mother’s arrival in the country. He liked disguises; he liked twins and the confusion caused by them. Most of all, he liked Feste.

  He wrote quickly. Moments like this were rare; they were always accompanied by the same feeling: a certain lightness in the head, a shallowness of breath, a quickening of the blood. It was like falling in love.

  He ceased writing as swiftly as he had begun. He had as much of it down as he needed. The pages of the play he was writing reproached him, but he could not work on it now. Tiredness crept through his brain like fog spreading up from the river, obscuring all detail, turning everything grey and the same. Anything he wrote would lack savour and he would only have to score it out tomorrow. His mind drifted back to the problems with the present production and he began to amend the play book, trying to cut Touchstone’s part without affecting the whole play. It was tricky. Too savage and he would alter the balance of the play between the comic and the sad and sober. Besides, clowns were popular; many came just to see them. If he cut too much, that part of the audience would become restless and they were the ones most ready to express their disapproval by mewing catcalls and throwing bottles. Even so, the present fellow, Moston, was everything he hated. Their regular clown, Armin, was sick. Clowns were much in demand at the moment – they’d been lucky to get Moston – but Will couldn’t bear to watch him. He’d written the part for Armin and it made him furious to hear Moston mangle the lines in ways he considered to be comical and see him set about destroying the delicate mechanism of the play with his overacting, unscripted asides to the audience, additional matter he saw fit to put in himself, while the dog he insisted on having with him wandered about pissing all over the stage. That got a laugh, but always in the wrong place.

  Will worked hard and long to put all that right. He was so lost in the work that he did not hear the muffled knock at the door, then the faint whisper of paper on rough boards. His landlady knew better than to disturb him so late into the night. It was not until he had put his writing things away and closed the box that he saw the note with his name on it lying just inside the door. He recognised Burbage’s hurried scrawl. What could this be? And who had delivered it? The street outside was deserted. Will opened the paper, reading quickly. The night’s work had been wasted. He need not have bothered with all that rewriting. After an exchange of words, not all of them pleasant, Moston had taken himself off to the Rose.

  Something had fallen, fluttering to the ground as he opened the letter. He bent to retrieve a card of the type used in games of chance, or for telling fortunes. Will stood up, brushing the card against his beard. He could have the clown he wanted. How had this come to be? Even while he was rewriting, some part of his restless, shifting mind was deciding that he needed a new man. One to whom clowning was instinctive, but who had the depth and range that Will required. One who could switch from mirth to sadness in a breath and take the audience with him. Feste would be perfect. He spoke good English and was an excellent mimic. If the man was quick to learn, as every indication showed him to be, he would con the part quickly. He would be perfect, if only they could get rid of Moston. Then this note was slipped under the door. Will’s wish had been answered, so it seemed, at the very moment of wanting. Like a summoning.

  Will went down to his landlady to find that the not
e had been delivered by a lad in a green velvet cap. Young Tod. He had searched for Will in every inn from the Falcon, Bankside, to the Mermaid on Cheapside. Giving up and wanting his bed, he had dropped the note here on his way home. Will thanked her and went back to his room. That explained much, but it did not explain the card that had fallen from the letter. It showed a man dressed in motley, strolling along with a bundle over his shoulder and a dog at his heels. Il Matto. The Fool. The card that cannot be beaten, but neither can it win.

  Will spent a restless night. He did not like puzzles, or rather he did not like ones that were not of his own devising. The card was Italian, of the exact same type he had seen passing under Feste’s restless fingers. What did it mean? How did it get into a note from Burbage? There’s more to those two . . . Forman’s words came back to him.

  Feste would be the new clown, but first he needed answers to questions of his own. He rose with the dawn just paling the windows. It was early, but there was no time to be wasted. He set off for the Hollander, going by way of the Globe, where the watchman let him in to the silent, deserted playhouse. He left a note for Burbage, explaining what he was about, and collected the part he needed. He took the scroll from the post where it had been set as a reminder to the now departed Moston, rolled the pages carefully and tucked them into his jerkin.

  The Hollander was hardly stirring. There was no one about, other than a pair of rough-looking fellows skulking back towards the river. They watched Will knock at the door. Perhaps they were waiting for the Hollander to open. South of the river there were always men looking for drink or women, whatever time of day.

  The door opened a crack and a woman peered out at him. ‘What do you want? None of the girls are up.’

  ‘I’m looking for Sir Toby and his wife Maria.’ Will had his foot in before she could close the door. ‘I’m told they lodge here.’

  ‘Might do.’ The woman opened the door further and looked him over. ‘But it’s powerful early.’ She yawned, her few remaining teeth brown stumps in blackened gums. ‘Who wants to know?’

  She was a large woman and stood barring his way, her beefy arms folded, her small eyes squeezed to slits in her coarse, fleshy face.

  ‘My name is Will Shakespeare. Tell Mistress Maria that I am here to talk to Violetta.’

  The woman withdrew without another word, leaving him outside. Will stood there staring at the warped boards of the old door with its rusted studs. She was gone a long time. He was beginning to wonder if she had even taken his message, or just left him outside to shiver in the damp coming up from the river, when Violetta opened the door.

  ‘Come in, come in.’ Violetta beckoned to him. ‘It’s cold.’ She pulled a thin shawl closer round her shoulders. ‘Johane shouldn’t have left you standing outside.’

  The big woman was collecting pots left from the night before. There was a man lying face down on one of the tables, arms stretched out. She wiped around him, wrung the cloth out on the floor and moved away.

  ‘Don’t mind her,’ Violetta said. ‘She barks worse than she bites.’

  ‘I’d expect that with those teeth,’ Will remarked, and Violetta laughed. She looked younger. She was just a girl. She shouldn’t be living here like this. The world had treated her harshly.

  ‘What brings you here so early?’ she asked as they began to mount the stairs.

  ‘I have a favour to ask from Master Feste. I think he knows what it might be.’

  Violetta smiled as she mounted the stairs ahead of him. She’d been surprised when Johane had said who was calling, but Feste was full of tricks. Once in a while, one of them worked.

  Maria was waiting for them at the top of the last flight of stairs.

  ‘Mistress Maria? I am Will Shakespeare.’

  ‘I know you, master,’ she smiled a welcome, smoothing her apron. ‘I’ve seen you and your players at the playhouse. Sir Toby was a great play-goer when he was well. He loved your work especially. He swore Sir John Falstaff was him to the life!’

  She rattled on, made nervous by his presence, the coincidence of his being here. She apologised for the meanness of their lodgings. ‘Do forgive us, we live in a poor way now.’ Sir Toby was a little better, thank you for asking. Feste’s playing seemed to soothe him. He had even taken a little sustenance. ‘Posset laced with sack. Dr Forman says no strong drink, but it is the only way to get it down him. Now, master, what can I get you? We have little here, but I can offer you small beer and some bread with cheese, or bacon.’

  Will refused politely. He was a courteous man and did not want to offend this good woman, but he was here on other business and would not be deflected.

  His eyes fixed on Feste, who had sidled into the room. ‘First,’ he laid the rolled scroll on the table, ‘I have a proposition for you. I want to know if you can con this and con it quickly.’ He took the Fool card from his pocket and set it on the table next to the script. ‘I find I’m in need of a clown.’

  ‘I don’t know, master. We will have to take a look at it, won’t we?’ Feste came forward talking not to Will but to Little Feste, whose small, twisted face had suddenly popped up in the crook of his arm. ‘We will have to see.’

  ‘Ooh, yes. We’ll have to see.’ He answered himself in a cracked little voice. The puppet’s head turned round, craning down at the unfurling roll of pages. ‘Looks hard to me.’ He peered up at his master. ‘Can we do it? Can we? We will certainly have to see.’

  ‘Enough fooling, Feste.’ Violetta stared at him in warning.

  ‘Fooling? Who’s fooling?’ Little Feste’s head whipped round to look up at Violetta. ‘Not us, it can’t be.’

  ‘I said, stop it!’ Violetta’s voice was sterner now.

  ‘Very well.’

  ‘We will help you,’ Violetta said, ‘if you will help us.’

  Will looked at her, perplexed. ‘I would help you, if it is in my power to do so. But tell me, for it puzzles me mightily, why all this?’ He picked up the card again. ‘Why can’t you ask me plain?’

  ‘Because I thought you might refuse us, just go on your way.’

  ‘I’m here, am I not? While Feste cons the part, you can tell me – what do you want from me?’

  Feste took the scroll and sat down cross-legged on the floor, leaning against Violetta. Maria sat opposite her, hands in her lap. She thought back, tracing her way through the crooked lanes of memory and longing to the gilded time when she was young and Illyria was the best place in the world. She looked up at Violetta. Maria would start and they would pass the story between them, backwards and forwards, as women wind wool.

  .

  7

  ‘After the last enchantment’

  MARIA

  It was a golden time. Beginning with the weddings. A double celebration. The city had never seen such a thing. People poured in from everywhere. The streets were lined from well before dawn as folk took their places to see the grand procession.

  The day chosen was known to be auspicious. From early the bands and companies paraded through the streets to the main square. Each guild and family represented, splendid in their livery, waving and hurling banners high into the air. Young girls came dancing after them, strewing flowers, so the couples would walk over a thick, soft carpet and sweet scents would waft up with every step they took on their way to the cathedral.

  Orsin and Sebastian were crowned with flowers, their white satin suits all embroidered with gold and silver and worked with precious stones so that they glittered in the sunlight like princes from fairyland. Their brides walked beside them, arm in arm, one dark, one fair. Viola in the palest rose; my lady in the soft grey-green of oleander leaves. Their bodices were all embroidered with tiny seed pearls that I’d selected and sewn myself. Their veils were so fine that they were worked with needles as thin as hairs and single threads of silk. The delicate lawn floated before their faces like breath on a frosty day.

  The cathedral was packed with guests from every neighbouring state and further, from Ven
ice and Sicily, Tunis and Tripoli, from the Sultan’s court at Constantinople, all there to celebrate this blessed day. The couples came in to fanfares of trumpets. Choirs sang as they approached the High Altar to make their vows of love and obedience before our most holy relic.

  Afterwards they stood on the steps of the cathedral, smiling and blinking in the strong sunlight. The grooms kissed their brides and the people all cheered and threw their caps in the air. As the couples returned to the Duke’s palace, roses rained down from every window until their shoulders were covered in petals of scarlet and white. The feasting and celebrations went on for the rest of the day and into the night. Not just in the palace, but all over the city, in each district, tables were set up in the streets, and the squares were filled with singing and dancing.

  The couples were taken separately to their marriage beds, as was the custom. The men carried shoulder high, accompanied by bawdy songs and raucous laughter, wreathed in herbs known to heat the blood and sustain performance. The women wore garlands of crane’s bill, lavender, lady’s mantle, wheat and yarrow, to awaken their passion and increase fertility. They were led to their bridal chambers by their ladies, who were hardly quieter than the men, quite as ribald and no less excited.

  Once the couples were put to bed, the celebrations continued far into the night. The next day the bridal gowns were inspected, according to ancient tradition. Guns were fired to show that the marriages had been successfully consummated. The festivities went on until all but the hardiest had sunk from exhaustion. It was a wonderful time, full of song and laughter, each detail to be salted away, to be kept in the memory. The guests departed, wishing the couples health and happiness. No one bothered much about who was absent, or stopped to think what trouble they would cause in the future.

  When I think of that time, it is always summer and we’re at the summer palace. Duke Orsin had it built as a wedding gift to his wife. He chose the site with such care. He loved her then. The house is on a terrace overlooking a wide, curving bay of white sand, surrounded on three sides by dense dark groves of cypress and pine. He was not the first to build there. When the workmen began to clear the ground, they found broken pillars, pieces of statues, blocks of marble. The remains of some ancient villa. The Duke sent for the very best architects, builders and craftsmen from Rome, Siena, Florence, Urbino and Ravenna, to build his own house by the sea.