Emilia

1592–94

is 23–25

All anyone could talk about was the elephant.

It was the perfect antidote to the dire whispers about the plague outbreak. King Henri IV of France had heard that Queen Elizabeth wished to see one, so he had procured an elephant to be shipped to England. A Flemish elephant handler and his wife would accompany the animal on a London-bound vessel and get it accustomed to English weather in return for charging a fee to curious Londoners who wanted to see the animal.

The Queen, however, did not want an elephant. If I said I wished to see the moon, would someone rope it down from the sky? she had groused. It had fallen to Lord Hunsdon to remedy the situation, which involved rehoming a massive creature and making sure Her Majesty did not have to hear about it ever again.

It was a convenient excuse for him to spend all his time away from .

Being the courtesan of a man of status meant being discreet, and pregnancy was not part of discretion. It was 's responsibility to avoid falling pregnant, though no herb she took was ever going to be foolproof. It was surprising that it had not happened before in the ten years she had lived with him. But for all that Hunsdon had flouted society by parading her around at court and allowing her to act as hostess at Somerset House, there was a line he would not cross, and that was humiliating his legal wife with a second family.

The conversation between them had been awkward and brief. "You will be taken care of," Hunsdon had told her, after she learned she was pregnant.

"Thank you, my lord," she had said.

Here are all the things she did not say aloud:

What did being taken care of actually mean ?

Where would she live?

Who was the father of this child?

Although she had been intimate with Hunsdon once in the time period that would account for the pregnancy, she had been intimate with Southampton far more often.

At that thought, tears had sprung to her eyes. "I am so sorry, Henry," she had whispered.

Hunsdon had folded her into his embrace. "I am not," he replied. "One small moment cannot poison a decade."

But it could and would end their arrangement.

She gripped his wrist, suddenly terrified of what was to come. had been plucked out of homes and dropped into others four times already in her life, but she had been lulled into a false sense of security with Hunsdon. She had known that he was older and would not live forever, but she had not foreseen that she would be the reason this relationship ended. "Will you be in London when I leave?" she asked.

Hunsdon had nodded, but that was the last time she had seen him, and now he was off dealing with the elephant. In the meantime, word had clearly been given to the staff. Servants who had acknowledged her as the lady of the house were now unable to meet her eye. She would enter her chamber to find a maid packing her dresses into a trunk. She was left to her own devices—which in the past would have been a boon—but with Marlowe away and no word from Southampton and a plague raging through London, she had nowhere to go.

She simply had to wait until she was told where she was going, or shoved out the door, she supposed.

So channeled her emotions into her pen. She wrote poetry that she discarded as too maudlin, and started plays she tore to pieces when she realized she had killed off every character by the second act. She wrote letters to Kit (which she sent) and to Southampton (which she burned).

And then, she felt the quickening of her baby—the tiniest flutter in her abdomen, like the shimmy of a silverfish.

This time, at least, she would not be alone.

To my dearest friend Kit,

After my heartiest commendations, I wished to share that nothing has been the same since you left. I find myself in a delicate state and know not how to share my predicament. Yet I trust you to read what I cannot put into words here, and to let you know that when you return you shall not find me at Somerset House. I would give you my address but it remains a mystery to me; I feel like a poor actor just waiting for the playwright to provide the lines for the next scene.

Is it overwrought to think of oneself as a message in a bottle—surely important to the sender but unknown until it washes ashore? Is anything written even real, until it is read by another? It puts me in mind of an ink I once saw, imperceptible until it was held over the heat of a candle.

Mayhap this heat I find myself in will make me impossible to overlook, too.

Your friend,

E.

—

As the season changed, those who were unable to leave London had contracted the plague in droves. would not venture near the city walls or Fleet Prison, which was heavily infected. But in a last-ditch effort to carve out a future for herself, she contacted her old friend Isabella in St. Helen's Bishopsgate.

She had no way of knowing if Isabella had already escaped a festering London, or if she would welcome a visit from a friend whose communication had been sporadic. But had spent a a few weeks now at Somerset House being ignored by servants and staff, and she was starting to feel like a ghost. She wanted—no, she needed— to be seen.

When Isabella wrote back, immediately put on her walking boots and headed through the empty streets of London, even though it was nearly dark.

wound a scarf around her face, her eyes her only visible feature. The homes with infection were marked with red paint and sealed shut from the outside. She passed a watchman setting food into a basket lowered from the second story of a quarantined house. The woman at the window was pale as the moon, with dark circles under her eyes. A death cart pulled by two sleepy horses stood in front of one building. watched two men carry out a body and drop it on top of others already in the cart. At the end of their rounds, near dawn, they would throw all the corpses into the Great Pit at Aldgate. She could not imagine the extra alcohol ration these workers were given made up for the risk of being that close to death all the time.

skirted the dray as the men went back inside to fetch more of the dead. The woman they'd carried out was not much older than . Where the shroud of her blanket had fallen away, could see that her throat and arms were covered with lumps that oozed pus and blood. Her empty eyes stared up at the sky.

Just then, a young man scrambled from behind a stack of barrels and nearly knocked down in his haste to climb into the death cart. He rifled through the pockets of the dead, finally holding up a small ring that caught the light of the moon before he jumped off the wagon and ran away.

hurried off, winging a quick prayer to her God and the Christian one that everyone she loved would be spared.

She had barely knocked at Isabella's door before it opened and she was yanked inside, not by a servant but by Isabella herself. found herself pulled into the tightest embrace. "I do not let just anyone cross that threshold, cara, " Isabella said.

"You are well?" asked.

"As well as one can be in the midst of a plague." She plucked at the ties of 's cloak to remove it. "Come. Sit."

But as soon as the velvet fell away, Isabella's brows rose. "Oh, ," she sighed. "How far along are you?"

looked down at her flat belly. "How did you know?"

"Your breasts," Isabella said. "That dress is barely holding them in."

felt her eyes well with tears. "I don't know how it happened."

Isabella smiled wryly. "I imagine you know quite well." She took 's hand and led her upstairs to her chamber, still beautifully appointed with cushioned benches and the largest bed had ever seen. Isabella poured two large glasses of wine and handed one to . "Now," she said. "Tell me."

"I took the tea every morning—the herbal one, like you showed me—and I guess…I guess it did not work."

"By my count it worked for nearly ten years," Isabella said. "What did Hunsdon say?"

"That I cannot stay with him."

"Well, it would not be seemly for the Lord Chamberlain to be living with the mother of his bastard child," Isabella mused.

swallowed. "It may not be his child," she confessed.

A smile curled across Isabella's face. "Well, well, look at my little protégée. Will you tell me who, then?"

"Southampton," said.

"You do not dream small when you dream, do you, cara. " Isabella laughed. "He will not have you?"

"He does not know. But even so, he could not if he wished it. You know that people like you and me…are not meant for people like him."

Isabella's gaze touched on the beautiful paintings that hung on the walls and the thick tapestries covering the tables and the silk counterpane that lay still as a pool on the bed. The Baron had left her well appointed. "Hunsdon will not provide for you?"

"He will," said carefully, "but he isn't offering up details of his plan."

"You should be delighted there is a plan. Many men would have turned you out on the street. And right now, , you do not want to be without a safe home."

thought about the death cart workers. "Which is why I have come to you. We are friends of a sort, are we not? Perhaps we might grow old together."

Isabella narrowed her eyes. "You are twenty-three, . I am twenty-eight. Neither of us is in our dotage."

"No, but…I could pay you for lodging."

As soon as she said the words, recognized her mistake. She had no guarantee that Hunsdon was settling a sum on her. She did have William Shakespeare circulating her play, but even that pipeline was broken by the plague…and she could hardly admit that was her source of potential income.

" Cara, you know this is not just my home, but a place of business."

Oh. Oh. had not realized that Isabella had taken a new protector.

"It is a comfort to have this residence, yes. But the deed to a house will not put food on the table or wood in the fireplace. I am still in need of support."

"I…I'm sorry—"

"Do not be. He is good to me. A lordling, third son of an earl. He wants someone to find him fair of form, to comment on his shoulders and his legs and not his immense belly. I have always been a good actress," she said.

"I would not stand in your way," begged. "I would leave before he arrived."

"I do not even know when he will choose to visit me—how could you predict it?" Isabella gestured to 's midsection. "And it is bad for business, cara, if a man comes to his mistress's home and is confronted with the reminder that his visit could end with a bastard child."

nodded, deflating. "Of course."

"You know I will do anything I can to help you."

Anything else, she meant.

tipped up her wineglass and drank the contents. She could feel the heat of Isabella's gaze. "All will be well," Isabella said brightly. "Hunsdon is a good man, yes?"

Something about those words dissolved the knot in 's chest. "He is," she said quietly. "He did not deserve this."

Isabella took 's hands in her own and squeezed. " Cara, " she said, "neither did you."

Dearest Mouse,

I, who despise the very tenets of faith, have faith in you.

Vermin survive when little else can.

(I refer only to your sobriquet, not your personality.)

(I also hope that made you smile.)

Your servant,

Kit

—

One day when returned from a walk through the gardens in a misty rain and went up to her chamber to tidy her hair and change her boots, she found her room stripped entirely of personal effects. Her hairbrush and her perfume and her lap desk were gone. The carpets that covered the oak table, missing. The clothing press, devoid of dresses. Even the bed had been stripped down—the linens and counterpane removed, the feather bed rolled away to expose the bare wool-stuffed mattress.

blinked, backing out of the room for fear that she had lost her mind and entered the wrong chamber. She nearly collided with the lady's maid who had served her for a decade. "Bess, where are my belongings?"

"Why, packed up tight, mistress, like His Lordship asked. The carriage, it's ready."

In a daze, followed her downstairs. The servants milled, but they were not lined up in rank the way they would have been for a true lady. Some of them—the maid of the kitchen, the groom of the great hall, the yeoman of the buttery, the chief cook—looked at with true pity, but they did not say goodbye or acknowledge her. She followed Bess to the front door of Somerset House, stopping at the threshold as if she had been struck by lightning. "Where am I to be sent?"

No one replied.

"Where is Hunsdon?" she asked, hearing the raw stripe of desperation in her voice.

He'd promised.

Lifting her chin the way she had seen the Queen do hundreds of times, sailed out the front door of Somerset House as if it had been her own choice.

"His Lordship said I could go with ye," Bess chattered, oblivious to how stiffly sat in the carriage.

"His Lordship said he would be here when I left," murmured.

Weeks later, Bess—who fancied the yeoman of the horse at Somerset House—would learn from him that on the day left, Lord Hunsdon had sent a note for her that had been delayed by the messenger, who had been quarantined in a plague household and unable to deliver it. The yeoman eventually gave the missive to Bess, who—now—gave it to .

Hunsdon wished her well in her new endeavors. He had hoped to say goodbye in person but could not leave Hampton Court because the Queen was still annoyed about the elephant.

It was, realized, an even bigger problem than she was.

—

The carriage that bore away from Somerset House stopped in front of a small, familiar doorway. Her cousin Jeronimo's home was just as she remembered it, even if it had been a decade. When the door opened and a young man stared at her, it took a moment to realize that this was her littlest cousin—now older than she had been when she first was sent to Hunsdon. "Cousin ," he said without surprise, which was how she knew they'd been expecting her.

Hunsdon had, once again, brokered a deal with her family.

Alma, Jeronimo's wife, pulled into her embrace. "It will be all right," she whispered in Yiddish.

struggled to hold back her tears. Whatever monetary boon Hunsdon had offered would still not make it possible for Jeronimo and Alma to squeeze two more people into their tiny household.

She watched as Jeronimo helped stack her trunk and Bess's small satchel precariously inside the doorway, along with her writing desk and the carpets that had covered the tables in her chamber. It all looked ridiculous in this space—like putting a crown on an urchin. Bess stood uneasily behind her as the carriage pulled away. "This will not be permanent," vowed to her cousin. "Your obligation to me should not exceed your comfort—"

Before she could continue, Jeronimo interrupted. " Piccolina, " he said. "We will have none of that. You are family."

He kissed her on both cheeks. felt herself soften just the tiniest bit. She had started to believe that she would only ever be a burden. If her cousin could take her in like this after the way she had purposefully avoided him for so many years, then she, too, could bend.

He gestured vaguely behind him, and realized that there was someone else in the room. The man stood in the shadows near the hearth. He was slight, and not much taller than herself. He had red hair and pockmarks on the part of his face his beard did not cover. But he had the same dark eyes that her father and uncles had, and familiarity tickled the back of her neck like a hot breath. "Hello," he said, pulling his cap into his hands. "It is good to see you again."

"Again, sir?" questioned.

Jeronimo clapped him on the shoulder. "Have you forgotten our cousin?"

She had a brief recollection of a little boy stealing her favorite sky-blue marble when she was not more than a toddler. Jeronimo's sister, Lucretia, had married Nicholas Lanier—and this was their son, Alphonso. "Yes, of course. I do hope you've learned how to share."

"I suppose we shall see," Alphonso said. For the quickest moment, his eyes dipped to 's stomach.

Once, when had been younger and living with Countess Bertie, she had been with her Latin tutor at lessons and suddenly the whole room seemed to shrink to the size of the head of a pin. The air sawed in and out of her, and stars swam in her vision, and she knew—she just knew— something terrible was going to happen. The next moment, her tutor leaned forward over the table and the candle sputtered and caught his long hair. Within moments his entire head was wreathed in flame as he shouted and beat at himself to put out the flames, but not before his skin blistered and melted in front of her eyes.

She had never had a moment of foreboding like that again, until now.

Once again, Jeronimo had decided 's future.

"," Jeronimo said, marking the look on her face. "You need a husband."

"What I need, " she seethed, "is to be asked, for once, what I want."

"What you want hardly matters when you have little choice," Jeronimo argued.

"I only have little choice because of the first decision you made for me!"

They were inches away from each other, screaming. Alma and Bess cowered against the wall. Her young cousin was pretending to be fascinated by the grain of the wooden table. And Alphonso? He turned his cap in his hands like the wheel of a ship. "I rent a home," he said. "Just a few streets from here." He swallowed. "We have much in common."

"Like what?" asked.

"Our…family."

"Who I would rather not be related to right now. What else?"

He frowned. "Our faith."

"It is hard to believe in a God that would force this on me."

Alphonso's face flushed. "God did not force you, from what I am told. You spent a decade flaunting his wealth with pleasure."

She reeled back as if she had been slapped. She had not expected such vitriol from the meek man before her. "How much?" she asked evenly.

He blinked at her.

"How much did Hunsdon pay you to marry me?"

Alphonso looked at Jeronimo, who nodded. "Seven hundred pounds. And an appointment in the court recorder consort."

Because she had been acting as Somerset House's de facto mistress, had been privy to the accounts. She knew that seven hundred pounds was slightly more than what the Lord Chamberlain had paid last year for a handful of doublets and three cloaks.

She nodded, then walked out of her cousin's house.

Seven hundred pounds. At least now she knew what she was worth.

—

On October 18 , 1592, Bassano married Alphonso Lanier in St. Botolph's Aldgate. The groom was drunk. The bride wore black, and a scowl.

As stood before a priest reciting a blessing to a God she didn't believe in, she told herself that this was a sham. And yet, legally, she knew it wasn't. The moment this farce of a ceremony ended she would belong to Alphonso Lanier, like his lute and his pocket watch. The seven hundred pounds that Hunsdon had settled on —ostensibly enough to last a commoner a good long time, if one was careful—was no longer hers, but Alphonso's.

She remembered how Isabella had explained the difference between being kept like a courtesan and being owned like a wife.

Despite Hunsdon's attempts—to, well, assuage his guilt with money, she supposed—she now had less than she'd had when she arrived ten years ago at Somerset House. She had lost her freedom.

Jeronimo and Alma were their witnesses, and after the ceremony they returned to Mark Lane to find an unruly group of Bassanos, Alphonso's passel of brothers and sisters, plus other relatives by marriage. No sooner had Alphonso crossed the threshold of Jeronimo's small home than he was subsumed into a knot of cousins, plying him with more to drink.

stood abruptly when Alma passed her. "I should like to leave," she said quietly, and her cousin-by-marriage frowned.

"But you cannot," Alma said.

glanced over her shoulder at Alphonso, who was dancing some kind of sloppy jig while his father played the recorder. "He need not accompany me."

Before Alma could reply, Dr. Hector Nu?ez entered the little home. He, too, lived on Mark Lane, and he was the de facto head of the Portuguese Jewish community there, who—like the Bassanos—attended church religiously but also maintained Jewish rituals within the walls of their own homes. To those who knew him in London, Dr. Nu?ez was a physician. But to the residents of Mark Lane, he was the closest they had to a rabbi.

Dr. Nu?ez took a length of silk from his doublet, pointed at four of 's relatives, and positioned them in front of the hearth. Alma slipped an arm around , drawing her to the fireplace. Alphonso staggered beside her, gripping her arm for support. The four men chosen by the rabbi lifted the silk, creating a chuppah — the canopy under which a traditional Jewish wedding took place.

froze. It had been one thing to say words she did not mean in a Christian church. It would be another thing entirely to make a mockery of her own religion's rites.

And yet. Wasn't this already a mockery?

There should have been a kiddushin —a betrothal—where the groom paid kessef to the bride, some money or the equivalent. Instead, Alphonso had received funds to solve the problem had become.

She froze as Alphonso took her hand and put a ring on her right index finger. It was too large, clearly a ring that belonged to a man, and she wondered from whom he had borrowed or bought it.

Ke'dat Moshe ve'Yisrael, Dr. Nu?ez was saying.

According to the laws of Moses and Israel.

Her hearing fuzzed as the rabbi recited the seven bridal blessings. She drank mechanically from the cup of wine that was thrust before her. It was not until she heard the shatter of the glass under Alphonso's foot signaling the end of the ceremony that she suddenly felt immersed in the action, instead of an observer. Her relatives shouted mazel tov and clapped Alphonso on the back.

The next step was for her to be sequestered in a room alone with Alphonso for yichud, symbolizing the consummation of the marriage. Instead he grabbed her hand and to the cheers of the others, dragged her out of her cousin's home and yanked her down Mark Lane to another dwelling.

He opened the door so forcefully he startled Bess, who was standing in the entryway with wide eyes. "Mistress?" she said, taking a step forward, but Alphonso shoved past the maid to the rear of the house, a bedroom. registered her hairbrush set out on a table and her writing desk tucked into a corner before Alphonso tossed her down on the bed. His hands went to the fastenings of his hose and struggled to a sitting position. "Cousin," she said.

" Husband, " he corrected. He fell on top of her, pinning her against the straw mattress. He smelled of wine and sweat and anger. With one hand he yanked up her skirts, and felt tears spring to her eyes.

"Please," she begged. "Not like this."

She flailed as Alphonso took himself in hand and stabbed between her legs. A cry tore out of her throat, and he pressed his palm over her mouth and nose.

couldn't breathe. She shook her head, but it only made him push down harder as he rutted into her. Her vision went black at the corners and she thought: This is how I die.

She bit him, hard.

Alphonso swore and shifted, and in doing so, came into contact with the hard, round reality of her belly. Her pregnancy was slight, but it was there— solid where her flesh should have been soft, curved where she had once been slender. She saw his eyes fall to the swell of her abdomen, and suddenly he went flaccid, slipping out of her body.

didn't move. She just stared at his cock, shriveled and small.

He rubbed his hand up and down it, but nothing happened. The irony, of course, was that had tricks up her sleeve for just this circumstance. Isabella had taught them to her; she had employed them as Hunsdon aged.

She would not give Alphonso the satisfaction.

Literally.

He knelt on the bed again and smacked her so hard across the cheek she tasted blood. " Puttana, " he hissed. Whore.

She rolled to her side, cradling her face, testing her jaw gingerly. She heard the door slam, and a key turn in a lock.

Slowly, sat up. She smoothed her skirts and swung her legs over the side of the bed. Shaking, she pushed to her feet and began to walk around her new chamber. It had no paintings or rugs. The furniture was sturdy and functional. The tester hanging above the bed had no curtains. It was the chamber of someone who had to work for a living, not someone who was born to wealth.

Her trunk had been set at the foot of the bed. She opened it, plunging her hands into the velvets and brocades of her gowns. She pushed aside her shifts and robes, the ribbon-tied stacks of correspondence, the trappings of her former life, until her fingers closed around a small wooden box.

Inside was her necklace of Murano glass, a pair of gold hair combs Hunsdon had given her, and her miniature of Southampton. When she knew she was leaving Somerset House, but didn't know quite when, she had taken it from her mattress and slipped it in here, so it would come with her wherever she was headed.

Holding back a sob, she pressed the miniature to her lips. Then she used a small penknife to cut through the seam of the feather bed ticking and pinned it to the fabric just beneath where her head would lie.

She knelt again in front of her belongings, fishing through them until she held her most prized possession: the printed copy of Arden of Faversham. Alphonso could lock her up, he could beat her, he could squeeze the air from her throat, he could even kill —but there was one thing he would not be able to do.

Silence her.

My dearest Kit,

I am married.

I would describe to you my husband's fine attributes, but I do not like to lie.

Yours,

E.

—

As the year turned, the death count from the plague rocketed. accustomed herself to running a household with only one servant, which meant she had to share in the work. Since she had never learned to cook, she left that to Bess, and instead she would clean and sweep and beat a batlet against Alphonso's clothes in a buck basket, attempting to remove the stains. The baby inside her grew, taking up so much of her breath and her energy that she sometimes had nightmares it would pry her ribs open to escape.

She did not mind, because the bigger she got, the less Alphonso wanted to do with her.

He drank spirits the way others breathed air. He had been put on probation from the court recorder consort after he arrived at the palace so inebriated that he vomited moments before the Queen entered. As a result—determined to find a new, more lucrative career—he had gambled on investments that had failed, bought shares of cargo ships that sank, and in a matter of months, had squandered three hundred pounds of 's settlement.

sold her hair combs first, then her Murano beads. She needed income, a stash of her own money, which she could hide from Alphonso. She had tried several times to get Kit to find where Lord Strange's Men were performing in the hope of getting word to William Shakespeare, who had proved untraceable.

So decided to capitalize on misfortune. She visited the apothecary from whom she'd purchased her contraceptive herbs. There she bought dried plants believed to prevent illness, and from these she made teas to protect against the plague. She and Bess sewed the crushed herbs into sachets: yarrow and tansy and featherfew. would walk the streets between Mark Lane and Spitalfields, trading her preventatives for pence.

She had no idea if her remedies worked. She just knew that if they didn't, the dead would not come back to demand a refund.

A woman approached, face pinched and hands shaking in the cold. "Have you one to keep a child healthy?"

nodded, feeling her baby kick, as if to punish her for her fib. "Yes, but it costs a groat."

The woman counted out four pennies in her hand, and handed her a slightly larger packet of rue, briar leaves, elder leaves, and sage. "Steep these in wine, add ginger and the thickest treacle you can source, and have the child drink the tisane at sunrise and sunset."

"Thank you," the woman breathed. "God bless you."

stamped her feet and blew onto her fingers. A cold sleet had begun to fall. She moved along the buildings, which loomed over her, using the uneven walls for support so that she didn't slip on the slick cobblestones.

By the time she reached Mark Lane and Alphonso's home, her teeth were chattering. She unwound the scarf she kept wrapped around her face when she went out selling to find Bess wide-eyed and nervous. "Mistress," she said, "there be someone here for you."

Over Bess's shoulder she saw an unfamiliar, well-dressed man. "Mistress Bassano?"

"Lanier," she corrected. "I find I am at a disadvantage, sir, as I do not know to whom I speak."

"Apologies, mistress. I am Edmund Greaves, solicitor."

For a moment, her heart stopped. He's gone and done it, she thought. Alphonso has drunk himself to death, and this man is here to tell me I'm a widow.

The man rose. "I represented Mistress Isabella Lucchino's interests."

's mind snagged on a single word. Represented. Past tense.

"I regret to inform you that Mistress Lucchino has died of the pestilence," Greaves said.

felt her knees give way. After her wedding, when she had visited Isabella, had sobbed in her arms, confessing what happened when Alphonso came home drunk enough to ignore her belly but not drunk enough to be impotent. Telling someone had been a relief. Isabella had known that hadn't come for advice or help, only to have someone else know what she suffered. Now, thought of Isabella's deep laugh and her perfume, musk and roses. She thought of how tightly she hugged. She remembered Isabella teaching her to straighten her spine when the world was beating her down.

The solicitor held out a small black pouch. "In her will, Mistress Lucchino requested that you have this," he said. "I remain sorry for your loss."

heard Bess opening the door for the solicitor as he left.

Isabella had left her the triple strand of pearls with the ruby clasp that she had been wearing the day the Baron dropped off at her residence. Unwarmed by Isabella's skin, the pearls were cold and hard.

carried them in her palm to her chamber, leaning down to see her reflection in the looking glass. Pulling her hair over one shoulder, she fastened the pearls around her throat. She pressed the necklace down hard enough on her skin to leave an impression.

Then she unlatched the clasp and set the pearls back into their pouch. Tomorrow, she would take the necklace to a jeweler and see how much money he would give her for it. Isabella would understand. In fact, it was probably why she had bequeathed the pearls to .

By the time she left the chamber, the skin of 's chest was smooth and unblemished, as if the pearls had never rested there at all.

My dearest Kit,

I am more globe than woman, in truth. Were you to see me, I should be a laughingstock, and you doubled over with mirth. Myself, I cannot double over at all, and I take no levity in the situation. In faith I am melancholic and cannot disclose if this is because of where I find myself, with whom, or without whom.

I wish I could keep this life inside me for a little longer. The world is not kind to those who have no weapons to fight.

In sooth, I know not why I am so sad. It wearies me.

Has there been word from Shakespeare? From news as such, I should take joy.

Yours,

E.

—

Six weeks before her baby was due, was expected to go into confinement. She would not be able to leave the house to make the meager income she had from selling her teas. She would still be expected to work with Bess and ensure Alphonso had a clean house and mended clothes and food on the table when he deigned to come home. Windows would be shut to keep out the bad humors that might affect the child, and tapestries hung to block out the light, because too much of it could damage her eyes. The house would become as dark and silent as a womb.

She wondered what it was that made men fear women who were heavy with child—so much so that they did not even want to cross paths with them in public. Was it because so many women died in childbirth, and it was uncomfortable to be reminded of that? Whatever the reason, it was cruel to make a woman sit in silence for weeks with thoughts of her own mortality.

During the week before she went into confinement, made a list of the errands she needed to run. She rolled wool stockings up her legs and let Bess draw the kirtle over her head. She couldn't bend down to tie her boots anymore, so Bess did that for her, too. "I could come with ye, mistress," Bess offered, but shook her head. This was something she had to do on her own.

Her first stop was All Hallows Staining, the church at the northern end of Mark Lane. She sat in the pew listening to the service, waiting for the moment when she could rise and take communion. It was true that she did not believe in a Christian God, but like any soldier in battle, she would hedge her spiritual bets. However, most important, she had to be seen receiving communion by others in the community, because it was during birth that women were believed to be most susceptible to witchcraft, and would not let herself or her child be branded as pagans.

With the wafer still dissolving on her tongue, she lumbered toward London Bridge, where the mercers had shops. It took over an hour on foot, in the whistling wind that licked up her legs and frosted her eyelashes. But just as merchants near her home had closed their businesses during the plague, so had the merchants who traded in linens and fustian and silk.

The shutters were drawn, shop after shop. She pounded on one door…a second…a third…and no one answered. felt tears spring to her eyes. It was possible that these mercers had fled to the country, just as nobles like Hunsdon had.

She had not thought of him much. She didn't let herself, because there was no point. He had not contacted , nor had she expected him to. He had provided for her, or so he believed. And yet she wondered if he thought about this child, which he likely believed to be his.

brushed away the tears that were freezing on her cheeks and moved to the fifth door. This time when she knocked, it swung open. A small man with a badger's pointed nose and spectacles perched upon it took one look at . "We are not open for business," he said.

"Please. I have coin."

"No." The man started to close the door in her face. "Come back another time."

"But I cannot come back!" said, her voice breaking.

"John," a soft voice called from inside. "Hold." The man fell back to reveal a woman balancing a small child on her hip. She took one look at 's swollen belly and patted the mercer's arm. "I shall take care of this customer," she said.

Her husband fell back, muttering.

"Thank you," said. "I am in need of…" The words stuck in her throat. "A winding-sheet."

She was not the first pregnant woman to buy her own potential shroud, the sheet in which her body would be wrapped should she die in childbirth.

The woman nodded, and an entire conversation passed between them in silence. "Wait here," she said.

stamped on the ground to keep her toes from going numb. When the woman returned, she was no longer carrying the child but held a parcel wrapped in paper and tied with string. "Two shillings," she said.

began counting out her pennies with shaking fingers. Twelve…fifteen…nineteen. She turned the pouch inside out, but she did not have the twenty-four pence that the sheet would cost. Her face burned as she met the gaze of the mercer's wife.

"I am mistaken, mistress," the woman said gently. "It is discounted in price." She counted out twelve pence from 's palm and folded her fingers over the rest of it. "God be with you," she added, handing the package before she closed the door.

To His Lordship the Earl of Southampton,

My humble duty remembered, I hope in the Almighty of your health and prosperity and do beseech Him long to continue.

And yet I am vexed often, awake in night, having had a vision of you—skin pale, chest still—asleep for eternity in a crypt. I pray that this pestilence skips over your home and that God keeps His eye fixed on you.

I fear I am not long for this world, either.

Wait for me on the other side, love. It is the only place we shall be as equals.

From this residence in Mark Lane, I remain yours always,

E.

—

knew that when noblewomen went into confinement, they sometimes wrote letters to their unborn children with messages of love and advice for the future. In the common event that the woman herself did not survive the birth, her child would still have something of her voice. And if, by God's grace, the woman did survive…the note was thrown into the fire, because of the bad luck it might attract.

spent days trying to think of what she should put in a note to her baby. She was convinced she was having a daughter, and it seemed even more important to impart the wisdom she had accumulated in her years.

I may not live to see you, she began, so here is what I wish you to know about me.

But then, she got stuck. Did she want her child to know that 's own mother had relinquished her—that this was somewhere in her bloodline? Did she want to speak of how poetry and prose could transport you? Did she want her baby to know that she had loved her father—whichever of two men he might be? Did she want to warn her daughter to fade into the woodwork and move silently, lest Alphonso take note of her?

That which most wanted to say she could not, for fear that this letter would be found and read when she was gone.

My darling—I was a published writer.

My words were spoken onstage by men who were no wiser.

My body was given to the keeping of a gentle, kind man. My troth was sold to a monster.

The one choice I made for myself was to love someone who loved me, for a little while.

Truth be told, I did not want you, at first. Now I cannot imagine a world without you in it.

And if I am not alive to hold your hand and lead you through this maze of what it means to be a woman in a man's world, promise me this: you will not blame yourself for arriving just as I left. Your existence did not come at the expense of mine.

Indeed, you are the poem I penned from heart, and like lines that are never forgotten, you were meant to outlive me.

She started and stopped her note many times.

What more would she want the child to know, if she were not around to impart that wisdom?

That she was not inferior because she had been born female.

There would be a day when her daughter felt stifled by her sex, and so decided to start there—to describe the weariness and frustration and maybe even the forbidden relief of facing your own death when the world was a battle every day.

When, in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes,

I all alone beweep my outcast state,

And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,

And look upon myself and curse my fate,

Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,

Featured like him, like him with friends possessed,

Desiring this man's art and that man's scope,

With what I most enjoy contented least…

read what she'd written.

Perhaps she had been asking for too much.

Perhaps dissatisfaction was relative, and this baby was all she needed to fill the emptiness inside her. Maybe did not have to tell her stories to the world; she only had to tell them to her child.

Let us both stay healthy, God, she prayed silently, and I will stop wishing for what I cannot have.

She picked up her quill again and addressed her unborn child.

Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,

Haply I think on thee, and then my state,

(Like to the lark at break of day arising

From sullen earth) sings hymns at heaven's gate;

For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings

That then I scorn to change my state with kings.

had just finished the sonnet when there was a scratch at the chamber door. Bess poked her head inside, carrying a note with a wax seal. "Mistress, the man what brought this said it was urgent and he awaits your reply."

took the folded missive and broke the seal. It had been nearly a year since she'd seen Southampton's handwriting, or received a request to meet.

Alphonso was not playing at court tonight. He would stagger home at some point from the stews, and if he found her missing, she would pay for her recklessness.

looked up at her maid. "Tell him yes," she said.

—

When had met Southampton before, it was not Bess who had accompanied her from Somerset House, so she first had to ensure her maid's discretion. She had no sooner set Bess down to beg her silence than the servant gripped her hands. "Mistress, since you became a wife, I have washed your cuts and put poultices on your bruises. If you were to leave when I was occupied, say, I could not be expected to report on your whereabouts."

had thrown her arms around Bess's neck and hugged her tight. "Thank you," she said, and moments later, when Bess went to take the baking bread from the hearth, wrapped herself in her warmest cloak and slipped out of the house.

With the few pennies she had left, she hired a hack to take her to Water Lane and the Blackfriars Stairs, where she could catch a ferry to Paris Garden. Unlike the last time she had met Southampton there, it was deserted.

She saw him standing at the bridge near the tidal millstream and began to walk faster, impeded by her girth. As if he could sense her, he whipped around a moment before she reached him.

"My love," he whispered, and his hands were in her hair, drawing her lips to his. She drank from him as if he were an elixir.

could not get enough of him—his rosemary and woodsmoke scent, the heat in his hands and his eyes, the sense that she was exactly where she was meant to be. She wriggled closer and felt Southampton's arms close around her. Only then did she remember what was wedged between them.

He drew back and parted her cloak. The sphere of her belly stretched the rough homespun of her kirtle.

Southampton met her gaze. "Is it mine?"

She shook her head. "I do not know."

For a long moment they stared at each other. It had started to snow, flakes sparkling in his hair as if he were enchanted, and desperately wished it were true—that he could wave a wand or cast a spell and take them so far away they would never be found.

Gently, he settled his hand over her abdomen. "I hope it is."

It took all the strength had to step backward. "To what end, Henry? Where is this fairy-tale world where we might live?"

He gripped her hands tight, his fingers running over the calluses she had developed washing and mending. "We shall make one," he vowed. "I will buy you a home and—"

"I am married," she blurted, and the words fell between them like a blade.

The shock on his face nearly drove to her knees. "How…how could you let that come to be?"

"To whom should I complain, did I speak of it?"

He looked away. "I tried to reach you before I left the city. But my messenger was told you were ill…and then, when he returned a second time, that you no longer lived at Somerset House."

"No," she whispered.

"I have been frantic with worry, . It was as if you had completely disappeared from the world. I thought you were…" His voice broke. "I thought the pestilence had taken you. Until you wrote and mentioned Mark Lane." Southampton hesitated. "Why did you not send word sooner?"

"To what end?" challenged. "The deed was done."

He nodded, swallowing. "Do you love him?"

She would have laughed, but she was too near tears. She cupped Southampton's cheek with one hand. "I will never love anyone as I love you."

He leaned in to kiss her. "Do not say that," he murmured, skating his hand over the baby inside her, staking a claim and a wish. "He will be as greedy for your affections as his father."

"She," countered, smiling against his lips.

She closed her eyes and forced herself to say what she had come here to say. Yes, she had needed to see Southampton healthy and hale, so that she could stop tormenting herself with the worst imaginings. But she had also needed to give them both the opportunity to say goodbye.

"Henry," she began. "We cannot—"

He pressed a finger to her lips. "We can. We can. " He took their joined hands and pressed them to her belly. "Is it not a miracle, what love has wrought?"

She felt the baby shift in her, a slow roll, as if it, too, needed to get closer to Southampton. And realized she did not need him to make magic.

They already had.

—

When 's water broke, she told Bess to go to Jeronimo's house en route to the midwife. She was to ask Alma to come immediately, so would not be alone.

She was strangely calm considering that, within hours, she might be dead. Pain arrowed down her spine and banded around her abdomen, making her drop to her knees. It took three tries for to reach her bedchamber, and by then, Alma had arrived. "I am here, sweet," she soothed, offering her arm to as a hard contraction gripped her. "Let's get you on the bed."

"No," panted. "There is…a parcel…"

"I will get it for you when you are settled," Alma said.

shook her head. "The linens…change them."

Alma hesitated, and then took the parcel from the table where it rested. She tore at the string and unfolded the pristine linen, while slid down the wall.

How did women do this?

How did anyone survive?

Alma laid the sheet on the bed and then helped to her feet. "Shroud me in it," gasped.

"No one is dying today." Alma tugged 's kirtle off, leaving her in her shift. She handed a shard of jasper. "Take this. It brought me luck and health with the boys."

nodded, palming the charm. Laboring women had all sorts of superstitious amulets—bits of tin, cheese, butter—meant to calm them.

By the time Bess returned with the midwife, was soaked with sweat and twisting on the new bedsheet. The woman was short and squat, with eyebrows that met in the middle of her brow and a hairy mole on her chin. She looked, to 's tired eyes, downright witchy, but like other midwives in London she would have taken an oath to not steal the umbilical cord or placenta or anything else that might be sold to a practitioner of magic. "All right, dearie," the midwife said, "let's take a look, shall we?" She bent 's knees and probed between her legs, murmuring to herself. "How long have ye been laboring?"

Alma answered on 's behalf. "Since midday."

"Dear Lord," the midwife said, "look down on Mistress Lanier and touch her womb. Give her an easy delivery and protect the life of her babe. Saint Margaret, pray for her. Amen."

"Amen," and Alma said, and then exchanged a look.

Time passed in a blot of pain that spread to the edges of 's body like spilled ink. Bess brought her caudle, an eggy alcoholic brew meant to ease the agony. By sunrise, could not stand without her legs collapsing beneath her, and she dozed between the aches that were ripping her apart. When the band of fire inside woke her again, she heard Alma and the midwife whispering. "There's an unnatural presentation," the midwife said. was barely conscious as she felt strong arms come beneath her own and start bouncing her up and down as if the baby was meant to be shaken out of her.

No, she thought. Stop.

She could smell wild thyme suddenly and saw the midwife rubbing the ointment on her own arms and fingers. Only a moment of confusion passed before the woman jammed her hand between 's legs.

could not even recognize the sound of her own scream. She had never made a noise like that. She was being split in two. Her hand scrabbled for Alma's.

The pressure changed and suddenly there was a burning between her thighs. "That's it, mistress," the midwife said, hauling into a crouch. She felt a gush of hot fluid, and then a slick of flesh as the baby slipped out of her body. A moment later, there was an aggrieved cry.

toppled backward, staring at the ceiling. Her vision swam.

Alma helped her sit up, and the midwife placed a small, wrapped bundle in 's arms. "Mistress Lanier," she said. "Ye have a fine, strapping son."

A boy.

A boy?

"Oh, ," Alma cooed, pulling away the blanket from the baby's face. "He's so beautiful."

glanced down. The baby's hair was damp, but it was red.

Hunsdon, before he had gone gray, had ginger hair. Southampton's curls were auburn.

Well.

She knew a baby could not have two fathers, and yet maybe this one could be the exception to the rule. She hoped that Hunsdon might have blessed him with compassion and that Southampton might have given him spirit. He would share a name with both of these men.

"Henry," she whispered, and the baby opened his eyes and stared directly at her.

They were silver, like hers.

had forgotten that her son might have some of her own attributes as well. She touched her finger to the soft moon of his cheek. She hoped that she had bestowed on him endurance, so this baby, like her, would be able to survive whatever obstacle was thrown in his path.

—

When the door of the house slammed open in the middle of the night, startled. Her movements woke Henry, who had fallen asleep in the crook of her arm after nursing, and she rocked him tightly. She could hear Bess's voice and Alphonso's louder, slurred one. There was a crash and a squeal and then heavy footsteps.

The bedchamber door opened and Alphonso stood in the threshold, rubbing his eyes as if he could not believe what he was seeing. Bess scrambled to squeeze in beside him. For a skinny slip of a thing, she was fiercely protective of . "Master Lanier," she said nervously, "what a fine son the mistress has delivered!"

had never expressly told Bess why she had been sent from Somerset House. She imagined the maid now knew; she could count months like anyone else. But the truth of the baby's paternity was never spoken aloud, and the expectation had always been that Alphonso's acceptance of the marriage (and the money) meant he would raise the baby as his own.

Yet even if he presented the child as his in public, that did not guarantee how he would treat the baby in private.

saw his eyes grow damp, and for a heartbeat she thought: Mayhap this will change things. Mayhap this will change him.

"Alphonso," she said softly. "Would you…would you like to see him?"

He walked slowly to the side of the bed and stared down at the baby. He reached out one finger as if to touch the tiny fist, and then pulled back as if he did not trust himself.

The baby started to cry. tried to soothe him by holding him to her breast, but he did not want to nurse. He was damp through his blanket.

Bess sprang toward the bed. "I will wrap him in a fresh swaddling cloth," she said, taking the infant. "And then he will wish to eat, mistress." She hurried out of the room, leaving Alphonso standing beside the bed.

He seemed to be chewing on his words. "You are well?"

"I am," she said. "Although it is not an experience I care to repeat." She realized her mistake immediately, even before Alphonso's dark eyes flashed.

The baby's cries grew more urgent as he was cleaned by Bess in the adjoining room.

"What did you name the bastard?" Alphonso asked.

Perhaps it was his use of the slur, or the spirits on his breath. Perhaps it was her anger at being bound to Alphonso as tight as the baby was in his swaddling. looked him directly in the eye. "Henry," she said.

She should have seen it coming. The fist struck her on the side of the head, snapping her sideways. The second blow crunched her jaw. She curled away from Alphonso's beating, but not before she heard the sickening crack of bone in her nose and tasted blood running down her throat.

After that, she didn't feel anything.

Dearest Kit,

I need you. Please come home.

—

Because public houses were still closed, when Kit sent word for , they could not meet at the Falcon Inn. He sent her the address of his lodgings in Norton Folgate.

If Kit's landlady was surprised to see a woman holding a baby on his doorstep, she didn't say anything. had a cloak pulled over her head, her face deep in the shadows. She bounced little Henry in her arms, but he was a good baby, as if he'd been born knowing that attracting attention invited disaster.

A moment later, Kit himself was in the doorway, and tears tightened her throat. "Mouse!" he cried, embracing her, momentarily flustered by the small bundle of human caught between them. "Now, what is this I hear of you being needy? If this is advice about finding a wet nurse I should inform you that I stay as far from a woman's breasts as—"

His irreverent chatter faltered as pulled the cloak back from her head, revealing her face. Her broken nose had healed, but she still had two deep black eyes, a tender jaw, and a healing gash on her forehead. His face was a one-man play of emotion—shock, pity, fury. When he took her shoulders in his hands and she cried out—one of the most tender bruises still bloomed there—she thought he would rear back and put a fist through the plaster wall.

"I shall kill him," Kit said evenly.

She smiled a little. "Mayhap we could not have this discussion on the street."

Kit seemed to notice the open doorway for the first time. He gently drew her into the building, gesturing for her to precede him up the stairs. knew that Kit had lived with Thomas Kyd there; she hadn't realized that he'd held on to the rooms when he left for the country. If Kit still had a roommate, he wasn't home. The small residence was surprisingly tidy and spartan, without any of Kit's oversize personality. She thought about his alleged secret work for the Crown and wondered if the nondescript decor was intentional.

There was a fire blazing in the hearth; the rooms were warm. tried to unfasten her cloak but couldn't manage it one-handed. She thrust the baby toward Kit, who held Henry like he was laced with gunpowder. He stared down at the infant's tiny features, the russet fluff of his hair. "What is his name?"

"Henry," replied, shrugging off her cloak. "He is named after his father."

"Hunsdon?" Kit asked. "Or Southampton?"

"I do not know," she said.

Kit swore and handed the baby back to her. "All right," he said. "Tell me everything."

For three-quarters of an hour, she did. From time to time, Kit seemed to forget to breathe, and once he even growled, but he did not interrupt her.

She began with the moment she learned she had fallen pregnant and ended with the gash in her forehead that Bess had stitched up hours after childbirth. When she was finished, Kit poured her some ale. The baby awakened and she unbuttoned her dress so that he could nurse. "Is that all of it?" Kit asked.

She blinked. "Is it not enough ?"

"I will kill him," Kit repeated.

"Alphonso? You cannot."

"Then I will take you away and hide you." He glanced at the baby. "Both of you."

"Kit," she said, "I am his wife. Legally, he owns me."

"As if I've ever cared a fig about the law," Kit scoffed. He began to pace, running his hands through his hair the way he did sometimes when he had written himself into a corner and had to figure a way out of it. It was so familiar it made want to weep. "I will bring you here and you will live with me."

She smiled. "I am sure a squalling infant will be music to the ears of your young lovers."

He fell to his knees in front of her, so that they would be at eye level. "Do you think you matter less than my love life?" Kit said fiercely. "Do you not believe that you are closer to me than my own sisters?"

She touched his cheek. "I believe it. It is why I asked for you. I cannot do this on my own."

"Tell me," Kit begged. "What do you need?"

"Money," said bluntly. "I need my own income, which my husband cannot touch, so that he cannot bankrupt me."

"Would that I could, Mouse, but I am far from a wealthy man. Would Southampton deny you funds?"

The color drained from 's face. "I was a courtesan, Kit," she said. "Never a whore."

Chagrined, he nodded. "Then how can I aid you?"

She met Kit's gaze. "Find Shakespeare."

—

By April, the epicenter of the plague was Fleet Prison, which the disease had ripped through like a fire. A month later, the weather grew so hot the entire city reeked. London was giving Hell a run for its money.

spent her days taking care of Henry and writing whenever he was asleep or quietly laying in his crib. She spent her nights avoiding Alphonso. Southampton was stuck at court; the Queen had refused to let her courtiers leave for fear they'd bring the plague back through the gates of the castle. Although Kit had promised her that he would track Shakespeare down, she had known it would take some time. She marked this in milestones: Henry's first smile, the first time he held up his own head, the day he rolled from his belly to his back.

Bess had become 's strongest ally. She didn't know the contents of the notes that came for from Kit or Southampton—she could not read—but she always brought messages to rather than Alphonso, so that could siphon off the missives meant for herself. She took care of Henry without ever having to explain why she was gone for several hours at night. She never asked why wrote so furiously for hours, when most ladies had only minimal correspondence to complete. She had tended to 's injuries after Alphonso beat her. So on the day Kit finally sent word that Shakespeare would be coming to Norton Folgate, Bess did not question why wished to wear one of her old court gowns instead of her rough kirtle, or why she had an appointment that would require her to be apart from Henry all afternoon.

took the entire stack of her work in progress and slipped it into a leather satchel. She kissed Henry on the brow. "Be a good boy for Bess," she said, and she hurried into the street.

By the time she reached Kit's apartment, Shakespeare had arrived. He and Kit were drinking, and had been for a while, from the looks of it. felt a flood of gratitude for Kit, as she was certain that the very last thing he would have chosen to do was form any kind of social bond with Shakespeare, who toadied up to him and wanted to claim association with Marlowe in the hope that fame would rub off on him like gilt.

"Ah," Kit said. "Mistress Bassano has at last arrived!" To , in a whisper, he added, "And not a moment too soon. I was considering strangling myself with my ruff."

Her lips twitched. "Master Shakespeare," she said. "Well met."

Shakespeare got to his feet and bowed. "Good day, mistress."

She sat and slipped her writing out of the satchel. Her breasts ached, reminding her she had only a finite amount of time before her milk would leak and stain the fine damask.

"When last we met, we agreed to provisional terms," said. "Yet with the sale of Arden of Faversham, I have proven that my writing is a profitable commodity." She let her gaze slide to Kit, who nodded at her, encouraging. "I would like you to hold to your end of the deal."

"I know not what that means, mistress," Shakespeare replied.

"You told me you would broker my writing in return for the use of your name," said. She lifted a stack of pages. "I have been working on a play about marriage and obedience—it's called Taming of a Shrew. It's a comedy—"

"I cannot sell a play," Shakespeare said. "The theaters are closed."

"Are you not even now performing with Lord Strange's Men in the countryside?"

"Aye, but older repertoire. No theater manager will risk the cost of new material while the very business itself is in peril. It is why I am reduced to making my coin as an actor."

rather thought that he was reduced to acting because his writing was pedantic and plodding, but she knew insulting him would not do her any good right now. She smiled prettily. "I imagine that must be devastating for you."

"Indeed, the Rose was in the midst of my Henry VI historicals when the edict to close theaters was handed down," Shakespeare said.

Kit winked at her. Those historical plays had come from Oxford's scriptorium of writers. But she could not be angry at Shakespeare for so seamlessly taking credit; was that not exactly what she wished him to do with her own writing?

"I am sorry, mistress, but I am not in the market for plays right now."

"If only there were entertainments that could be enjoyed in the privacy of one's own home, safe from pestilence," Kit smoothly manipulated. "Did Mistress Bassano fail to mention she is an accomplished poet?"

gaped at Kit as he shuffled through her stack of papers and pulled free the Venus and Adonis poem she had written for Southampton.

Shakespeare reached for it. "Is this true? This is also your work?"

"Yes, sir," said.

He fanned through the pages, his eyes roaming over her handwriting. "A poem will not fetch the same price as a play. Maybe twenty shillings."

"She will honor the same split she did for Arden, " Kit said.

Shakespeare smoothed his wispy goatee. "There is something to be said for keeping my relationship with printers in a time when product is scarce. You have read this poem, Marlowe?"

"Indeed," Kit said.

bit her lip. "I could give you a fair copy—"

"No need. The printer will set it." Shakespeare crossed to a small table on the other side of the room. He lifted a quill lying on a piece of paper—something Kit must have been working on—and leaned closer to read the prose in progress. With a scowl, Kit snatched the paper away, and Shakespeare shrugged, dipping the quill into the inkwell. Then he scrawled his name beneath the title of Venus and Adonis.

"I shall take Master Marlowe at his word," Shakespeare said to . "As you have pointed out, your work is a known commodity to me, and therefore any topic you expound upon should sell, should it not?"

nodded, not trusting herself to speak.

"I shall be in touch after the sale," Shakespeare said.

"You can leave word with my landlady," Kit injected. "She will know how to reach Mistress Bassano even if I am not in residence in London."

Shakespeare reached for his cloak and hat, then picked up the poem and strode from Kit's apartment.

"Kit," breathed. "What were you thinking ?"

"That my Mouse needed money, and that I wasn't going to let him leave here without taking something of yours to sell." He hesitated. "But also, truly, that if he'd stayed in my rooms another quarter of an hour I might have pitched him out the window."

"The poem you gave him is the one I dedicated to Southampton."

"I know."

"It is also about a woman seducing a younger man. It's quite…erotic."

Kit shrugged. "I repeat: I know."

"Shakespeare put his name on it without allowing me to alter the dedication."

"Southampton's a patron of the arts. Others dedicate work to him."

frowned. "Yes, but when people see Shakespeare's name on this—in tandem with this particular subject matter—will they not make the assumption that he might have… carnal feelings for Southampton?"

Kit raised a brow. "Darling, my tribe does not want to lay claim to that vapid, vainglorious half-wit. Your kind can keep him. Although I do look forward to everyone questioning Shakespeare's sexual preferences once the poem starts circulating."

set her hands on her hips. "You gave him that poem on purpose."

Kit's eyes gleamed. "A gentleman never tells," he said.

—

The last week of May, Bess smuggled two missives in one day to . The first was from Kit, letting her know that Shakespeare had given him her earnings to pass along and inviting her to Norton Folgate later that week to celebrate her newfound success as a poet.

The second was from Southampton, asking her to meet on the same day.

She hadn't seen him since before giving birth to Henry, and even as she pulled a fresh sheet of paper from her writing box for the reply, she knew she would be sending her regrets to Kit.

Alphonso, however, was underfoot. The same fear of plague that had kept Southampton sequestered with the Queen had led her to deny court musicians entry to the castle. This meant that had to find an excuse to slip away without her husband becoming suspicious.

In the end, she bartered with the only tool she had: her body.

Since their first abortive consummation on their wedding night, Alphonso had mostly left untouched. The bigger she had grown with child the more he'd avoided her. But now, Henry was almost three months old. Her body had healed. So days before she was to meet Southampton at the Paris Garden stairs, served Alphonso his supper—but rested her hand on his shoulder as she did. Hours later when nursing Henry, instead of covering her breast, she let her shawl slip and watched her husband's eyes flick toward her. The night before her meeting with Southampton, she waited for Alphonso to enter the bedchamber. "Mayhap it is time for a real marriage, sir," she said meekly.

It was all he wanted: her submission. He did not realize she was orchestrating the entire experience. He did not know, as he grunted and thrust into her, that was nowhere to be found, locked so deep in her mind that she was untouchable. Instead, she imagined Southampton's touch, Southampton's mouth, washing away the stain of Alphonso.

The next morning, Alphonso strutted like a crow. Just as she had anticipated, he could not wait to share with his closest friends how he had tamed his shrew of a spouse. "Wife," he announced, "I have people to visit. I know not when I'll return."

"Of course, Alphonso," said softly. "You need not make me aware of your comings and goings."

He jerked his chin in assent. "It is good that you have seen the error of your ways, . I prefer this version of you."

As soon as Alphonso closed the door behind himself, thrust Henry into Bess's waiting arms. "I prefer this version of me, too," she muttered, pulling her cloak on so that she could conceal her face in its hood. She kissed the baby's brow, and slipped outside.

She hurried to the ferry landing because it had taken her husband longer to leave the house than she anticipated. Even as the boat pulled up, she could see the Earl—tall and broad, silhouetted by the sun as if the shape of him needed to be filled in with color and light. found herself laughing, joy spilling from the seam of her lips. He caught her around the waist and spun her, the hood falling back from 's face as he kissed her.

"You are well?" she asked, framing his face with her hands.

"It is I who should be asking that," Southampton said. "The babe…?"

"Is so beautiful," breathed.

"I had thought you might bring him."

She could not read, from his tone, if he was disappointed. Indeed she had considered taking young Henry to meet him, but the truth was that she was too selfish. She had so few moments with Southampton, she could not bear to share them, even with her son.

"He is very demanding right now," said.

Southampton slipped a hand beneath her cloak and squeezed her arse. "Is he now," he murmured.

They crashed together again, stealing each other's words and breath, parting only when he grabbed her hand to pull her into the garden. When Southampton brought her to the mossy banks of the stream where they had first made love and spread his cloak on the ground, lay on her back and stared up at a sky as vivid as his eyes. Between long, lazy kisses, they filled in the empty spaces in each other's lives— telling him that Isabella had died of plague; Southampton sheepishly admitting that he'd been nominated as a Knight of the Garter. Neither of them mentioned Alphonso. "Tell me about my son," Southampton said.

considered before she spoke. Whatever bits she offered could not have any barbs that might, upon later reflection, hurt to recall. "He has red hair," she began. "And he sometimes sleeps with his arm up in the air, as if he is performing the galliard." She rolled on her side to face Southampton. "When he nurses, he makes little sounds, like an old man so captivated by his meal he cannot help but hum while he devours it."

Southampton laughed, nuzzling the rise of her breast over the edge of her dress. He began to peel down the fabric, but she stilled him with her hand. "I am…not the same," she said, suddenly nervous. She had silver lines on her belly. Her breasts hung lower. Sometimes, they leaked.

He met her gaze. "You are exactly the same. You are mine. No matter the package that comes in."

She kissed him then, and his hand slipped beneath her neckline, pinching her nipple. He pushed up her skirts, frothing the satin between them. She took him in hand and guided him, throwing her head back and crying out in a way she never had before when they were together. Let them be seen; let them get caught. If other people saw their love, it would only affirm it—evidence that this connection had been real, should there come a day when it was nothing but a memory.

After, she lay in Southampton's arms, her hair streaming over his chest like ink. "You are leaving again," she guessed.

"For Titchfield, in the morning." His grasp tightened on her. "How did you know?"

It wasn't something she could put into words. It had simply felt like Southampton was not giving himself to her but trying to anchor himself instead.

She imagined confessing it all to him: that her husband broke her body and sometimes her spirit; that she did not know if Henry was his but wished so with all her heart; that there was a poem circulating with a dedication to him that she had penned.

He sat up, rummaging about in his cloak. She was so lost in her thoughts that she did not realize, for a moment, that he was pressing a small velvet pouch into her palm. She felt the shift and jingle of coins inside. "If I cannot be with you, with him, then—"

sat up, dropping the pouch as if it contained a viper. "I will not take payment for what I give freely, my lord."

"It is not payment, —"

"Then I will not take charity." Bright spots of color burned on her cheeks. Much had been taken from her, but her pride was still intact.

Southampton let the coins rest between them on the ground and curled his fingers around hers. "I am trying to do the right thing, love," he said softly.

"As am I," replied.

He was the one who looked away first. "If ever you…if were you to find yourself in need…" His voice broke. She knew he was trying to offer a safe harbor, but she could barely stomach the thought of showing up at his ancestral home in the country in her plain clothing with a baby in her arms and being shown around to the servants' entrance for charitable leavings from the master's meals.

Southampton seemed so defeated that relented. She squeezed his hand and tried to lighten the mood. "Were I to find myself in need, I suppose I could appeal to you through a poet's dedication…."

He blushed and raised a brow. "You have read it? Venus and Adonis? "

"Who has not," she said diplomatically.

"I know not this Shakespeare fellow," Southampton said. "But the turn of phrase—it's quite good. Do you agree?"

What she wanted to say: Yes. Yes.

I am the poet; and you are not the patron, but the subject.

And: Did you like it? Truly?

Instead, met his gaze. "Apologies, my lord. I should not have snapped at your kindness," she said softly.

"And I should have thought before I spoke. I swear to you, I meant no offense."

"I know." She drew in a breath. "Do you ever feel as if every moment of your life is a transaction? As if you must trade away parts of yourself to keep what makes you…you?"

His eyes snapped to hers; she knew that he understood completely.

"I fear that I'll give too much away," confessed, "and I won't remember who I am."

"Then I shall remind you," Southampton promised, kissing her. With each brush of his mouth she felt her melancholia lift, her tears dry as if her cheeks had never been damp.

" Love comforteth, like sunshine after rain. "

She did not realize that she had spoken a line from Venus and Adonis out loud until Southampton drew back to look at her, quizzical. "You have memorized parts of that poem?"

smiled against his lips. "I might have done," she said.

Dearest Kit,

Come now, it has been a week. You cannot still be holding a grudge because I could not meet you.

I remain indebted to you, presuming you still hold my purse.

Yours,

E.

—

It was Jeronimo who told her what had happened, and it wasn't even meant for 's ears. They were gathered at Alma's table for a secret Shabbat dinner, and Alphonso had asked what news they'd had from court, which was currently residing at Nonsuch. "Her Majesty is mulling a move to Windsor," Jeronimo said, "but will not allow entertainers to join her until the pestilence clears."

"Nor will she pay for tunes we do not play." Alphonso speared a bit of meat with his knife. "What is the point of being a court musician if there is no music at court?"

"Yet the talk is mostly of Marlowe's death," Jeronimo added, as if he were speaking of the weather, as if he hadn't just sucked all the air out of 's lungs.

"What?" she managed.

"The playwright," Jeronimo said. "You know of him?"

She forced her chin to bob.

"Stabbed. Last Sunday in Deptford Strand, over payment for a shared meal."

saw black stars at the edges of her vision. She braced one hand on the wooden table, clutching Henry closer. Kit had been killed on the afternoon that she had been lying with Southampton on the mossy expanse of Paris Garden, quoting her own poetry.

Something tells me your little death was better than mine, Mouse, he would have said.

If he'd been here to say it.

No.

Nonononononono.

She pushed away from the table, hearing Alma's concerned voice, and passed the baby to her cousin's arms before staggering outside. She pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes and took great gulps of air. She could not imagine a world without her best friend in it.

" Baruch dayan ha'emet, " she mouthed silently, God is the true judge, as she tore the neckline of her kirtle. It was the traditional way Jews said goodbye to the body of someone who died while acknowledging that the emotional bond would last.

She could not say how much time had passed before she simply started walking down Mark Lane—without a cloak, without a clear head. Eventually she heard boots on cobblestones as Jeronimo caught up to her. "Cousin? Are you well?"

"I met Marlowe…with Hunsdon," she muttered. "I must pay my respects."

"He was buried the next day, after the coroner reported that the fatal blow was made in self-defense. Awfully rushed, if you ask me," Jeronimo said, his voice lower. "The gentlemen he was with, they weren't playwrights but government agents. You know there were whispers that Marlowe worked secretly for the Crown…but I wonder if the argument was about him being an outspoken atheist." Her cousin raised a brow. "A good reminder for all of us about what we choose to show the public, and what we do not."

faced him, her eyes red and her face scarred with tears. I did not get to say goodbye, she thought.

Jeronimo looked at her with surprise. "You enjoyed his work, then?"

" Loved, " she said fiercely. "I loved him."

—

For a week, grieved without letting anyone know she was grieving. Sitting shiva in plain sight was impossible, but when she could, sought out the most uncomfortable seat in the house, a reflection of the pain in her heart. She recited the mourner's Kaddish, holding the words of prayer on the bowl of her tongue in silence.

She could not help but feel responsible.

If only she had postponed her visit with Southampton and had met Kit instead at his apartments—then he would not have been in Deptford Strand and he would not have dined with agents of the Crown and there wouldn't have been a fight.

If only, when Kit had asked what he could do to help her, she had not told him she needed money. If she had said, Keep yourself safe, maybe he would still be here.

Needless to say, she would never be paid for the sale of Venus and Adonis. But she did not miss the coin. She missed Kit.

With Southampton in Titchfield and Kit dead, became a wraith. She lost weight she could not afford to lose, and her milk dried up, requiring Bess to find a wet nurse for Henry. She rarely spoke and for days at a time did not change her clothing or brush her hair. Alphonso did not seem to notice. The biddable wife who did not bother to talk back, just stumbled in the direction in which he pushed her, seemed to be the one he'd hoped for. Sometimes he rutted on her at night. If there was any solace to being so numb, it was that barely cared.

In October more gossip arrived from Windsor Castle: Dr. Rodrigo Lopez, Her Majesty's physician, had been condemned to death for plotting to kill the Queen. had been introduced to him at court when she was with Hunsdon and had pretended not to know him, but in fact, she had met him years earlier at her cousin's bris ceremony, where Dr. Lopez served as the moyel. The rumor was that Dr. Lopez had made an enemy of the Earl of Essex by telling others that he'd treated the nobleman for syphilis ("A night with Venus, a lifetime with mercury," Kit used to say, which only brought to tears once again). But regardless of the source of the accusation, having a Portuguese converso Jew accused of conspiring to kill the Queen cast Mark Lane, and all its residents, under a microscope.

In November, a page at Windsor Castle contracted the plague and died. Since Her Majesty had removed herself to Windsor to escape the disease, it sent everyone there into a panic. None of this interested , except that the dead page had served Lady Scrope—the daughter of Hunsdon and his wife, Anne.

In early December, dreamed of Kit.

In her mind's eye, she was the size of a rodent. She shimmied down the bedsheets and had a heart-pounding run-in with a house cat before she managed to squeeze through a crack in the floor. There was a white rat there, with a pink twitch of a tail and red, inebriated eyes. Mouse, Kit said, it took you long enough.

You do not look like yourself, replied.

You're one to talk.

I don't know how to not feel this way, she admitted.

Of course you do, Kit said. You give the feeling away to a character.

Having tasted success, she didn't know if she could go back to writing without anyone ever reading her words. Before she could admit this, however, the rat smacked her with its tail. Send the coxcomb a message. You're lucrative now. He will come to you.

When the sun rose, startled to find Alphonso still snoring beside her. She dressed in fresh underthings for the first time in days and pulled her hair away from her face. She wrote a letter to Master Shakespeare in care of Lord Strange's Men, informing him of her lodgings and reminding him of the need for great discretion. Then she sealed it and paid a messenger to deliver the note in the countryside.

Within a week, she had arranged to meet him at the Falcon Inn Stairs.

"God be with you, Mistress Bassano," Shakespeare said. "And my condolences for the loss of our dear friend."

She gritted her jaw tight. She would not reply and let this man presume that Kit meant to him even a fraction of what he'd meant to her. "To be blunt, sir, I wish to continue our partnership." She pulled another long-form poem from her satchel— The Rape of Lucrece. "When it sells,"— when —"you may write me at the address I last gave you, and please continue to refer to yourself as a glover with a delivery."

This time, Shakespeare scanned the title page. "Southampton again?" he said wryly.

"He is an unparalleled lover," replied, "of the arts."

—

By the time 1594 dawned, 's poem had sold. Shakespeare had also given her a piece that he'd been penning— Titus Andronicus —and asked her to revise it. did not enjoy reworking someone else's plays, particularly this one about a Roman general, but money was money. She needed it more than ever since Alphonso had no work. As a result, treated the revisions like any other drudgery, from laundering clothes to emptying chamber pots. She leaned into the theme of revenge and raised the body count to fourteen gruesome, creative deaths—severing heads and hands and baking two rapists into a pie. She wrote in bawdy jokes. As a way of leaving her fingerprint on the text, she added characters named ?melius and Bassanius.

She could imagine Kit grinning at that.

Rewriting Titus, however, made her itch to craft her own plays again.

In the early days of her marriage, she'd written Taming of a Shrew. She decided to revisit her initial draft. A character she'd originally called Alphonso became Baptista—the name of her father—instead. The character became Bianca. She changed the setting to Italy, peppering it with a hundred allusions to music, and false identities.

The plot was simple: when a suitor became attracted to the sweet, compliant Bianca, her father said that her elder sister—intractable, brash Kate—had to be married first. A man named Petruchio took on that challenge, and the entirety of the play showed him trying to break his willful fiancée.

On a hot midday in late July, sat at the oak table in their home, writing the end of her revised play as Alphonso entered. "Where is the dinner meal?" he asked. "I am famished, truly."

She no longer hid her writing from Alphonso, who either believed she wrote correspondence in blank verse or truly did not care.

"Indeed you must be, husband," said without glancing up. "A man as strong as you must needs have his sustenance."

"Is this not what I said?"

From the larder, Bess peeked around the shelving.

"It is why I have planned a truly special dinner for you, sir," continued.

Alphonso stepped closer. "A special meal?"

"What say you to a piece of tripe finely broiled?"

"I like it well enough," Alphonso said.

"Nay, 'tis choleric. What say you to a piece of beef and mustard?" She continued to scrawl on her page as she spoke.

"A dish I do love to feed upon—"

"Ay, but no…the mustard is too hot."

"Why, then," Alphonso said, "the beef. And let the mustard rest."

"Nay, I could not live with myself if I served a man as fine as you beef without the mustard to dress it. That would be as if to admit that my own lord and master does not tower head and shoulders over them in all things, that he might be satisfied with such trivial repast," said.

"Just so," Alphonso blustered.

"Which is why I cannot bear to serve you your midday meal."

He blinked. "But—"

She beamed at him. "Perhaps Jeronimo has extra from his table?"

With a growl, Alphonso slammed out of the house, presumably to his cousin's.

In the larder, Bess giggled. "Mistress, he will beat you for that one day."

"Very likely," agreed.

She flipped to the end of her play, which was the height of absurdity.

After vowing to tame Kate—his shrew of a wife—Petruchio finally wore her down to the point where she displayed her utter obeisance in front of others. When Petruchio called, she came.

But when Kate's sister Bianca—the rule follower—was called by her new husband…she resisted.

Bianca, who was—in her prior draft—named .

She liked that, even if she was the only person who would know such a thing.

She thought about Alphonso, crowing to his friends about his submissive wife. She thought about how she outwitted him daily, as just moments before.

I am ashamed that women can be so simple-minded as to declare war when they should be surrendering for peace, wrote, giving words to Kate. Or that they want control, supremacy, and sway, when they are bound to serve, love, and obey. Why would our bodies be soft and weak and smooth—unsuited to toil and trouble in the world—unless our soft characters and our hearts should match our external parts?

She paused. What else would her husband most wish to hear?

My mind used to be as arrogant as yours, my heart as great, my reason perhaps even more. I used to exchange word for word, and frown for frown. But now I see our swords are only straws, our strength is weak, our weakness beyond compare so that we seem to be most what we are not.

At that, gave a little grin. It was her hint for the audience to read between the lines.

So lower your pride—there's nothing you can do. Place your hands below your husband's foot. This duty my hand is ready to do, if he wants me to.

There could be nothing more ridiculous than a wife putting her hand on the ground for her husband to tread upon, so that his tender sole would not have to touch the ground. Except, perhaps, for reading such a line as earnest, instead of utter sarcasm.

And for those who were truly paying attention—the speech in which Kate declared herself well and duly silenced was the longest monologue in the entire show.

What was it about a woman's voice that was so terrifying to a man? Was it the thought that a lesser creature might have intelligence or agency?

Or was it simpler than that?

If she took herself seriously, others might do the same.

Other women.

Scores of women.

And that just might erode the power men had always effortlessly held.

"Mistress?" Bess asked, breaking her concentration. "What shall we serve for supper, then?"

grinned. "Who cares?" she said.

—

In 1594 , London was reborn. Cases of the plague trickled and then stopped. Taverns and theaters reopened. Little Henry was walking and talking now, a good boy who happily sat at Bess's feet gumming a twist of bread while she prepared meals. The boy had the calm assurance of Hunsdon, and the joyful disposition of Southampton. spent hours trying to catch a reflection of Southampton's smile in her son, or the intelligence of Hunsdon's eyes when young Henry asked her why the sky was blue. But mostly, when she looked at him, she saw his wary gray gaze—a silver mirror of her own—learning how to be quiet when Alphonso was loud, how to be invisible in plain sight.

Shakespeare sold her play to Philip Henslowe, the theater owner who was now working with the newly formed Admiral's Men and the Lord Chamberlain's Men. He planned to present The Taming of the Shrew at Newington Butts—a theater in Southwark—in a season that would also feature 's edited version of Titus Andronicus. Shakespeare himself had become a shareholder in the Lord Chamberlain's Men, which meant—if the venture was successful—he'd have a greater stake in the profits than an ordinary actor. "I thought you would be happier," Shakespeare admitted, taking a swig of his ale. They were meeting at the Falcon Inn, the old haunt where Marlowe had introduced them years earlier, and it held ghosts for .

"I am happy," said. "It will be the first time my work will be on a stage. It is only that I do not have the means to see it performed."

He frowned, gesturing at the small pouch of coins in her hand—her cut of the payment. "You have more than a penny," he pointed out, the price of admission to watch the performance from ground level, standing.

"It is not so easy for a woman, sir," said.

Shakespeare leaned forward. "You know," he said, " I could accompany you."

"Sir," she said primly, "we are both married."

He covered her hand with his own. "We work so well together. It would be interesting to explore the bounds of that, would it not?"

would rather fuck the ancient barkeep than this vain mammet. She slipped her palm from beneath his. "I do not mix business and pleasure, sir. And given my need for anonymity as a playwright, it would not seem wise to attend the theater together."

"Oh, you needn't worry about that," Shakespeare said blithely. "No one would ever imagine you're an author."

A tight smile ached across her face. "How fortunate for me," she murmured.

After she and Shakespeare had parted ways, walked home considering who might accompany her to the performance at Newington Butts. She could ask Jeronimo, but he'd likely ask her why she so badly wanted to see a performance that was a mile south of the city when there were more accessible diversions. She could take one of her young cousins, but they would report back to Jeronimo. She would have asked Kit, and they would have gone in glorious disguise, and the thought that this would never happen again made her chest hurt so much she had to pause in her journey.

In the end, there was really only one man who could take her, and even though had no desire to spend any time in the company of her husband, she began to forge a campaign of obedience so different from her usual self that it caught Alphonso off guard.

She did not know if it was the food that she instructed Bess to make for him, or her own ministrations in bed, or even just agreeing with every idiotic statement that fell out of his mouth, but when asked Alphonso if they might attend the theater, he agreed.

A few weeks later they entered the courtyard of the theater with hundreds of others attending the afternoon performance, pulled in by the buzz and the chatter of entertainment. Alphonso did not balk at paying the entrance fee, but to her surprise, he gave extra coin so that they would be on a higher level of the gallery and could have cushions on their seats. She was touched by this, until she realized that he had done it not for her but because he wanted others to see him as more prestigious than the groundlings.

When the performance started, let her gaze slide from the actors on the stage to the raucous audience. Soon, they were whooping with laughter.

They like it, she thought, letting out the breath she had not known she was holding.

Nay.

They love it.

When Katherine and Bianca, the sisters, entered with their father, and Kate began flaying suitors with her sharp tongue, Alphonso leaned toward . "That is the shrew," he explained.

"Ah, thank you for pointing that out, Husband."

"And ho, her father's name is Baptista, as was yours!"

She did not take her eyes from the gallery. "A remarkable coincidence, indeed."

She had not anticipated what it would feel like to hear words of her own creation in the mouths of others, to see the effect her writing had on the crowd. She found herself waiting to see if a joke landed, if a turn of phrase elicited a sigh, if the crowd was reading sarcasm where they were meant to. The show, for , was not what was happening onstage—it was in the way the men in the theater laughed when Petruchio snatched a gown away from Kate as a means of subjugating her—and the way the women recognized their own frustration on Kate's face. It was comedy, but maybe when these couples left the theater, it wouldn't be. Perhaps the husbands would realize that wives were not meant to be housebroken. Perhaps the wives would believe they mattered more.

The Taming of the Shrew was not a play about how women should be biddable. It was a comment on how fragile men were, that they could not countenance the thought of a woman who was an equal in wit and strength. It was the headiest feeling, to think you might change the world under the guise of entertainment.

realized that this was the true reason for the Lord Chamberlain's position, and for appointing a Master of the Revels. Plays must be vetted so that they were not espousing any radical ideas.

At that thought, she glanced up, feeling the heat of someone's gaze on her cheek. Across the gallery, a level higher than where she and Alphonso sat, was Hunsdon.

He looked a bit thinner, and his hair was white now instead of simply silver. Beside him was a peaked, pearl-encrusted woman—his wife, perhaps? He put a hand over his heart and gave her a small smile.

She smiled back at him. I am well, she tried to convey. I miss you.

Two things happened at the same time: the woman beside Hunsdon leaned closer to whisper to him, and Alphonso noticed looking at the Lord Chamberlain.

felt her husband grab her wrist with such cruelty it made her cry out. "You will not look at him," Alphonso hissed.

"I am not—"

"I will not let my wife cuckold me. Think you I'd make a life of jealousy?"

The scene onstage was eliciting laughter from the gallery, enough to hide the argument between and Alphonso. Petruchio was pointing at the sun and calling it the moon, browbeating Katherine into agreeing with him.

Alphonso yanked out of her seat. He dragged her from their row, as other audience members shouted at the disturbance. tripped over feet and skirts and made her apologies as her husband pulled her down the stairs and into the mostly empty courtyard.

"Do you not wish to see how the play ends, sir?" murmured.

He looked at her, incredulous. "The play," he said, "is over." Then he smacked her so hard across the face she spit blood.

She fell into the mud as Alphonso kicked her in the gut and then gripped her throat, smacking her head on the ground. Help, called out, or she thought she did. Yet even if she had been able to speak, who would have come to her aid? It was within the rights of a husband to discipline his wife for whatever infraction she had committed.

By the time Alphonso gave up and left her lying in a puddle outside the Newington Butts playhouse, was exactly the kind of wife he wanted: silent and unmoving.

—

When she had regained consciousness, the play was over and the crowd was leaving. dragged herself to the side of the yard. Her mouth was crusted with blood, and searing pain ran down her leg. She was forced to beg passing gentry for a coin for the ferry, imagining the reaction if they knew she'd penned the play they'd just seen.

On the far side of the river, she paused to consider her next step. She thought about young Henry. Even if did not return home with her husband, she felt certain that Bess would lay down her life for the boy before she let Alphonso near him. Putting her own needs before her son's felt like a blade to her heart, but knew that she would be no good to Henry as she was. She needed strength and a plan, and she could find neither alone.

had never been to Southampton House. It was not far from Somerset House, on the northern side of a square with gardens and greenery laid out in the pattern of a cross. She limped to the servants' entrance, keeping her eyes downcast as she knocked. A barrel of a man answered, sniffing in disdain at the sight of . "The broken meats are gone for the day," he said.

"Please," said softly. "I know your master."

The usher scoffed. " Everyone knows my master," he said and closed the door.

She had not thought ahead to what might happen if she were not allowed entry into even the servants' quarters—she had been too busy swallowing her pride. She shuffled toward the street, only to be nearly mowed down by a carriage. As the conveyance stopped, Southampton burst out. "?"

The moment he reached her, she collapsed against him. "Dear God," she heard him whisper as he swung her into his arms. He pulled her into the carriage, shouting a direction to his coachman. drifted in and out of consciousness, finally awakening on a narrow bed with a rough wool blanket. She gingerly touched her swollen throat. A fire leaped in the hearth, and Southampton was sitting on a chair beside the bed. On a small table was a bowl of water, pink with blood, presumably from tending to her wounds. "Where are we?" she rasped.

"My hunting lodge," he replied, taking her hand. "What happened?"

The moon was already rising. "I must get home to Henry—"

"I sent word that you would be detained."

She did not even want to imagine what excuse he had given. "If I am not there, he will take his anger out on the boy—"

Southampton's eyes seared hers. "I will eliminate him before that happens."

"You cannot kill my husband."

A muscle ticked in his jaw. "It would not be the first time a peer has evaded the noose."

"If you were capable of murder," said quietly, "you would not be the man I love."

"I would ask what brought on his wrath, but I do not believe there is any just cause."

lifted a shoulder. "We crossed paths with Hunsdon. Jealousy is a green-eyed monster that mocks the meat it feeds on."

"You were promised away as a child," Southampton replied, incredulous. "Surely he cannot blame you for an arrangement you had no hand in making."

"The only choice I have ever made for myself," said, "was you."

He gently brushed his lips against hers, pulling back when she winced. "Forgive me," Southampton said. "I did not mean to hurt you."

She pulled him closer. "You are all that heals me."

—

The next morning insisted on returning home, because she could not put Bess in danger by making her remain there alone to protect little Henry. Southampton compromised by saying he would let her go only if he could return her in his carriage and see her again later that week. He would go to Gray's Inn and discreetly ask the legal minds there for a way to protect her within the constraints of a marriage contract.

He also told her that while she slept the night before, he had penned a note for his coachman to deliver to the Earl of Oxford, unequivocally stating that he would not marry his daughter Elizabeth—not two years ago, when the match had first been suggested, not now, not ever.

"I want you," he'd said simply. "And if I cannot have you, it will be because you turn your back on me…and not the other way around."

It hurt too much to hope, so did not say anything in response.

She returned to a quiet, placid house. Henry was playing with river stones on the hearth, stacking them until they fell. He clapped when she entered, running into her arms, and asking why her neck was purple. Bess didn't ask; she didn't need to. turned to her maid. "Where is he?"

"He never come home last night, and good riddance, I say." Bess spat.

Perhaps he'd gone out drinking or playing dice after leaving her in the mud. Perhaps he'd gotten caught cheating and was knifed by his opponent or tossed into the Thames. With any luck she was a widow and did not yet know it.

Her throat was still a necklace of blackberry thumbprint bruises a day later, when Alma brought word that Alphonso had angered Jeronimo by quitting the court recorder consort unexpectedly, determined to make a name for himself as a warrior so that he might be knighted. He was shipping out to Brest with a battalion at the behest of the Queen to aid King Henry IV of France in his fight against the Spaniards. "He may be gone for months," Alma said, allowing her eyes to skate over 's injuries. "Should you need food, aid, you must turn to me for assistance."

Relief washed over . Getting money and food was a problem she had solved before. She and Henry would be physically safe.

And she could work.

After all, now that William Shakespeare was a shareholder in the Lord Chamberlain's Men, he'd be even hungrier for content.

—

The late summer of 1594 was to be among the happiest of her life. was mistress of her own household. Her wastrel husband was (she hoped) getting himself run through by a Spanish sword in a harbor in Brittany. She met Southampton once or twice a week, making love beneath a palette of stars, often letting herself doze in his arms until dawn had broken and she could sneak back home before her son awakened. She and Bess took little Henry to Paris Garden, where the maid let him toddle around in his leading strings as wrote feverishly.

The play was a storm in her head, like the one she'd experienced so many years ago on the ship crossing to Denmark. It funneled, picking up thoughts and words and growing stronger until it seemed lived more in her mind than in the real world. She thought of who she had been when her cousin had presented her to Lord Hunsdon as a fait accompli . She thought of Southampton, and how she lived on sips of him, as if that might be enough to nourish her.

She was going to write a romance. The grandest, most terrible, doomed romance. The heroine, like , was going to be thirteen when the story began.

The heroine, Juliet, had parents who knew she was too young to be married. When her suitor, Paris, claimed, Younger than she are happy mothers made, her father countered, And too soon marred are those so early made. When Juliet's mother asked if she'd consider Paris's suit, Juliet protested: I'll look to like, if looking liking move, but no more deep will I endart mine eye than your consent gives strength to make it fly.

But when it became clear to Juliet that she was going to wind up married without her consent, she did the most radical thing of all.

She fell in love with the one person she could never be with.

Instead of a class chasm, wrote a family feud. She borrowed memories from her love affair with Southampton. She drew Romeo in his image, and let Juliet's devotion spill from her own heart onto the page. Written in this play were all the private truths she could never say—that she would give up the rest of her life for another five minutes with Southampton; that it had been not sex that made her a woman but love; that the world would never allow them to be together.

On the day finished the play, she asked Bess to return home with Henry so that she could run an errand. The streets were hot and fetid as she made her way to the apothecary shop that Isabella had brought her to years ago.

The woman who emerged from the back of the shop had the look of the former apothecary, but younger—perhaps her daughter? "Mistress," the woman said, wiping her hands on her apron. "How can I help?"

picked her way beneath the dried herbs swaying from the ceiling beams. She cast about for something unexceptional. "Have you lavender?"

"Aye," the woman said, leading her to the pale purple stalks.

gathered a handful, willing her hands not to tremble.

"Will that be all ye need?"

She met the young woman's eyes. "Have you anything to…urge the terms?" This last she whispered. It was, after all, a sin.

had known for some time now. Her breasts were tender, her stomach broadening. She had not been able to abide the smell of cooking meat.

This baby could not have any father but Southampton, because Alphonso had been at battle—and absent—for months. Which also meant that there was no way to fool her husband into believing he had sired this child.

The apothecary looked at without judgment. She pulled a small wooden box from a shelf. "First make a pessary of this stinking gladdon," she said, holding up the petals of an iris. "Then boil this juniper with wine and drink it down."

dumped a few coins on the worktable and slipped the herbs into the pocket of her skirts.

"Mistress," the woman said, as she turned away, "God be with you."

—

For two days she bled and cramped and sweated. When she could stand, she bundled her sheets and helped Bess wash them. When she couldn't, she rocked Henry on her lap, imagining what his little sister might have looked like, with strawberry ringlets and silver eyes.

Southampton, uncannily, asked to meet her the night she aborted his baby. She sent word that she was indisposed. She did not tell him why, and she never intended to.

On the third night, she dreamed of the daughter she would never have. She smiled, thinking that the child would kiss her brow, or let kiss hers. Instead, the girl opened her tight little fist to reveal a branch of juniper, and she shoved this down 's throat until she screamed an entire forest.

On the fourth day, she felt well enough to meet William Shakespeare at the Falcon Inn with her completed manuscript of Romeo and Juliet. She noticed, absently, that he was better dressed than he'd been before. Well. So this arrangement was working out for him.

"You are not yourself," he remarked.

looked at him wanly over her cup of ale. "It is the heat," she said.

"Ah." He thumbed through the play. "What is this one about?"

"It's a love story," told him.

He frowned at the title page. "But it is subtitled A Tragedy. "

She thought about seeing her play performed in person. She remembered the feel of Alphonso's fingers squeezing the breath from her throat. She grieved for Juliet, for Romeo, for Southampton, for herself.

"Yes," said. "Precisely."