Emilia

1618–1645

is 49–76

didn't find out about Shakespeare's death until a month or so after it happened, in the spring of 1616. The public wondered if there might be one last play—perhaps even an unfinished one—in his estate. She found herself thinking about that. She wondered what people would make of it—how a playwright who, she'd heard, had meticulously divvied up his belongings might not have any of the tools of the trade in his possession. When Kit had died, the detritus of his life as playwright was all that remained; his landlady had even let sort through the stacks of books he used for research and take a few. When Nashe and Watson and Greene and other poets had passed, their unfinished works went to their patrons or to other writers to finish.

She considered the mythology that had sprung up around Shakespeare—his reputation for never having to revise his plays; his ability to write one commercial success after another despite also being a full-time actor; his unorthodox method of working alone instead of collaborating like other playwrights—and she shrugged. There were just some people who were meant to go through the world with a patina of invincibility glimmering on them, and he was one of them.

And then, reasoned, there were people like her.

—

snaked between the tables where six young girls sat, bent over a poem in the original French. "Now," she said, "what is the message of Bisclavret ?"

Little Olivia, the youngest of her pupils and the most precocious, raised her hand. "That we should have a school dog," she announced. "It would be ever so handy for cleaning up after supper."

Her older sister, Caterina, hushed her. "It's a werewolf, not a dog, stupid. And we can't have a school werewolf because it would eat us."

"I'm not stupid!"

"Girls," interrupted, before this could spiral even further. "I would like you each to write down your interpretation of the piece, and we shall read them aloud." She turned as the girls picked up their quills. " En fran?ais, " she added, and they groaned.

It was 1619 and she had reinvented herself again. Henry was gone more often than he was home, following the King from palace to palace as a royal musician. She supported herself and Bess by starting a school, instructing young women who were excluded from the local grammar school by their gender, and from private tutoring by their families' limited income. The parents she had convinced to pay her small tuition were mostly immigrants who lived near Alma and Jeronimo. Some were musicians, some were mercers, some were glassblowers.

In forming her curricula she used the same works that Henry had been taught when he was a young boy in grammar school, supplemented by the texts that the Countess had given when she was little. She leased a house in St. Giles-in-the-Fields that accommodated herself and the girls. It was the cheapest property in a good location, and as a result, there was plenty wrong with it—from rot in the threshold of the doorway to a wobbly handrail on the staircase. Her landlord, Edward Smith, had promised to fix these things two years ago, when she first leased the building, and still had not. She had withheld her rent; he had sued her for defaulting on her lease. She had countersued, asserting that she had a right to deduct the cost of repairs he had not made.

"Mistress?" One of her students tugged on her skirts. "Is there somewhere else I can sit?"

looked at the spot where the girl had been and saw a steady stream of water pouring from the ceiling, as it was apt to do when it rained. "Come work over here," she sighed, bringing the girl to another bench and asking the others seated there to squeeze together to make room.

Her oldest student suddenly threw down her quill, splattering ink across the page of the girl beside her. "Maria," said sharply. "I can only assume that means you are finished."

The girl stood, her face mottled. "This is stupid, " she muttered. "This is all so bloody stupid." Shoving past , Maria ran outside into the driving rain.

Maria was sixteen and a role model for her other students; had never seen the child with a cross word for anyone. "Girls," she instructed. "Continue."

She found Maria sitting on a small bench beside the school entrance, protected from the rain by the overhang of the roof. The girl scrubbed her hands across her face and looked away, but not before saw that she had been crying. Without saying a word, she settled beside Maria and waited.

"What is the point of learning this?" Maria finally exploded.

" Bisclavret? "

"All of it," she gusted. "Why learn when I'm never going to use it? It doesn't matter if I can speak French fluently or conjugate Latin verbs when all I'm meant for is to keep house and squeeze out babes."

rocked back, resting against the wall of the building. "Perhaps you will do more than those things."

"You're wrong, mistress," Maria argued. "And it makes it worse when you have a taste of learning you'll never use."

"Stop it," snapped, grabbing the girl's shoulders and shaking her. "If you say that, they've already won. They've convinced you that your life is so small, you shouldn't even hope for better." At Maria's frightened gaze, she relaxed her hold, her fingers flexing. "When I was a child, a bird—a kite—flew inside the Queen's palace and got trapped. It could see outside through the windowpane, so it kept flying into the glass. Over and over."

Maria's eyes widened. "Did it break through?"

"No, it broke its neck."

"That's a terrible story." The girl scowled.

"Perhaps," said softly. "Some time afterward, the glass in that windowpane shattered. There must have been a hairline crack no one had seen. A glazier was called in to replace it, but the new glass broke, too. Every time it was fixed, a few weeks later, it would fracture. The damage must have created a structural flaw in the frame. That windowpane was very high up, mind you, and eventually it was just left open to the elements." She turned to Maria. "Escape may not be possible in my lifetime. Mayhap I am like that bird, beating against the window for naught. But you—or your daughter, or your daughter's daughter—may be the one to fly through the hole."

Maria threw herself into 's arms. "I'm to be married by the end of the month," she sobbed. "To a silk merchant who's old enough to be my father. He only cares if my hips are wide enough to survive childbirth…not whether I've read Ovid."

wasn't surprised. These girls would be wed in alliances that would further their families' status or their wealth or their connections—she only hoped that before then, they would be fully armed with an education. She stroked Maria's hair. "He likely can't conjugate Latin, either," murmured.

That, at least, got a faint smile from the girl. drew back, wiping Maria's tears with her thumb. "Are you not tired?" Maria asked. "Of struggling?"

"All the time," admitted. "I think that is what it is to be a woman."

The rain fell in sheets, cutting them off from the rest of the world. " I think," Maria mused, "you are a very good tutor."

looked at her. "I wasn't always one. Once," she murmured, "I published…"

…plays that the whole world loved.

But she could not tell this to Maria, because it only proved the girl's point.

"I published a book of poetry. That very few people read," she added wryly.

Maria considered this information, something she had not known about her schoolmistress. "Mayhap that matters less than the fact that you wrote it."

was an old woman now. She knew the difference between idealism and practicality; she knew that clinging to your principles did not put food on your table. And yet, she was a survivor. That was both the blessing and the curse of hope: it turned a weary why into a seductive why not. Even when you were wise enough to understand the odds of failure, all you saw was that sliver of possible success.

could see Maria's mind working out this puzzle of how to exist in a world that would rather erase her. Of all the curricula she had devised, this might be the only lesson that mattered.

She squeezed Maria's hand. "Shall we go back to Bisclavret ?"

Sometime later, when the girls had moved on to Latin conjugations, there was a violent pounding on the door. peered through the window slats to find her landlord standing in the pouring rain beside a constable and a watchman.

"Girls," she said, "upstairs. Now."

The men pushed their way inside. "That's her," Smith said, jabbing a finger toward . "She's the one who owes me."

set her hands on her hips. "I can only assume you've come in the middle of a torrential downpour so that you can witness firsthand the repairs you haven't made to the roof."

The constable grabbed her elbow, hard. "Let's go. Yer under arrest, mistress."

There was a gasp from the staircase, and 's gaze flew to find her students, huddled at the top of the landing.

"I cannot leave these young women unaccompanied," she said. "I am a schoolmistress."

"Not if you don't pay for the schoolroom," Smith said.

She turned to the watchman, who was pulling her arms behind her back as if she were a common criminal. "Please. They cannot remain here alone."

"They're welcome to join you at Fleet Prison," the constable said.

caught Maria's gaze, projecting more calm than she felt. "Go to Mistress Wormheld, the seamstress on the corner. Ask her to deliver a message to your parents, explaining that I am indisposed and that the school had to shut its doors temporarily. Please tell them I shall write to let them know when we are back in session."

The girl swallowed. "Yes, mistress."

When she was released from debtor's prison, the parents of her students were not bound to look favorably upon a schoolmistress who had been jailed. She wondered if she would see Maria again before the girl was married.

"Go," said softly, and Maria scuttled down the staircase, knocking into the handrail in her haste; it listed and then collapsed like kittle pins.

—

The Knight's Side of Fleet Prison was for those who were awaiting punishment but had no coin to bribe the wardens into settling them into the Master's Side, where there was decent food, cleaner bedding, relative privacy, and the hope of a visit from family. did not have money; she did not even have a way of letting Henry or Alma or Jeronimo know she'd been arrested. Although she was not in the worst of the accommodations at Fleet—those were the fetid basement cells called Bartholomew Fair—she was jammed into a cell with six others: two women barely covered by their dresses, two who looked like ordinary working-class women, another who had not stopped praying, and a beggar who was missing a foot.

"?'ello, luv," said one of the ladies, whose breasts were spilling over the neck of her dress. "What they nab ye fer?"

"A misunderstanding," said. "I do not belong here."

The light-skirt laughed, revealing a mouth of missing teeth. "Wouldn't ye know it, ain't a one of us who does. "

There was no day and no night in the cell, just candles that burned and sputtered outside and the occasional scrape of a key in a lock or a chain on the ground. In addition to the two prostitutes, the common women had been charged with adultery. The praying woman was a cutpurse, and the beggar was mute.

Once a day a pail of water was set in the cell, with a skin of mold floating on the top. A guard would toss a hunk of cheese in, too, and then laugh when the women attacked one another to get to it first. did not join the fray. She pressed her back against the wall and closed her eyes, reciting sonnets in her head.

Some days, she lay in the faerie bower where Titania and Oberon had fought over the little Indian boy.

Others, she walked the parapet with the soldiers of Elsinore Castle, seeing the ghost of the old king.

She ran through the forest of Arden with Rosalind, trading her skirts for the freedom of a man's hose.

She watched Desdemona stare at her husband with nothing but devotion, even as Othello choked her life from her.

She inserted herself in a half dozen different settings, anywhere but here.

Several days into her incarceration, the candles outside the cell hissed into blackness, and the rats came out. They crawled around her ankles and scratched at the soles of her boots. She dozed and woke to the splash of the beggar urinating on her hand.

Scrabbling backward, inadvertently kicking one of the other women as she went, found the spot where the wall of the cell met the iron bars.

"Ssh, love," she heard, a whisper in her ear. "Don't fight so."

turned and found Southampton beside her. "You are not here," she whispered.

"I am if you need it to be so," he said.

She knew she was dreaming, and willed herself to stay asleep.

"Do you remember the day we were at Paris Garden?" he asked. "And a red kite swooped down and stole your drawers?"

nodded. "I felt indecent, the whole ferry ride home."

"And I thought the kite was the smartest bird, to have secured such a treasure."

She smiled. "I spent days looking up in the sky, expecting my underclothes to fall."

He leaned closer. "So did I."

"Does it seem so long ago to you?"

"It feels like only moments have passed," he said softly. "Don't blink."

She stared into his eyes. "Don't blink," she repeated.

Truly, it took only a beat of the heart before the baby in your arms was a young man on the brink of starting a family of his own. A moment ago, she had been learning the power of her own body at Isabella's. Just yesterday she had broken her fast with Hunsdon, kissed Southampton, argued with Kit. How did time move so very slowly and so dizzyingly quickly all at once?

"You," a voice said, and the rusty hinges of the cell groaned. startled; she had blinked after all. The vision of Southampton was gone. She tumbled backward, catching herself with her elbow and sending a shooting pain up to her shoulder. The guard yanked her upright, pulling her down the hall.

"Put in a good word for me, luv," said one of the prostitutes.

was dragged up a set of stairs with puddles in their sagging stone bellies and into a room so bright that she was blinded. It took her a few seconds to realize that her son was standing beside the warden, horror written across his face.

Henry put an arm around her. It never failed to amaze her how her child was now a head taller than she was, broad enough to support her when she stumbled. His mouth was tight as he led her out of Fleet, past the gates, into the bustle of the London streets. Only then did he stop and hold her shoulders, assessing her for damage. "Are you all right, Mama? Shall I find a doctor?"

Her face softened. "I am fine, darling. Or I will be once I'm rid of the stench of the cell."

"I did not know," he said, his eyes welling. "I came as soon as I heard."

He had been at Nonsuch, playing flute for the King. She had no idea where he had come up with the money to pay her debt and whatever else it would have cost to have her released.

"I am sorry you were in there for so long."

She wanted to ask Henry how long it had been. As she hadn't eaten for days, she'd begun to lose track of time. But she thought that might frighten him. Even if he was bigger and stronger than she was, he would always be her child, and she would do what she could to protect him.

"I had company," said.

—

The last person expected to find at the door when she opened it was Ben Jonson.

"Mistress Lanier," the writer said, sweeping his hat from his head. "Well met."

Five years ago, Jonson had bundled all his plays together into a folio. Prior to this, no playwright considered mere scripts to be great literature; theater was a snack for consumption rather than a meal of state for dignitaries. Jonson had the hubris to refer to his plays and masques as if they were part of an oeuvre. Even more shocking—his folio had sold well.

Now, it was 1621, and Jonson's work was famous. On the other hand, herself had not written a play for years, not since Shakespeare's death. She had lost her conduit into the business; she was trapped inland with no access to a port. What could Jonson possibly want with her?

She, who was rarely tongue-tied, did not know what to say. Should she feign ignorance of their association? What were the odds that he even remembered Hunsdon's shy wisp of a courtesan from so long ago, reading Mary Sidney's closet drama after hours? Or the time they crossed paths in a tavern, when he was drunk, and she was crawling her way back into Shakespeare's good graces?

"I beg your pardon, sir," said, deciding to assume that he did not recall any of that. "Are we acquainted?"

She felt Bess come into the room, curious about the stranger at the door.

"Apologies," Jonson replied. "I am Ben Jonson. I often forget that a poet's words are more recognizable than his face."

felt a trickle of sweat run down her spine. "Bess," she said, turning. "Would you bring some ale for Master Jonson?"

The servant disappeared into the back of their lodgings. led Jonson into the main room and invited him to take a seat before the fire. "I hope it is not too presumptuous to think you are familiar with my writing," he said.

"Sir, I doubt there is a soul in England who is unfamiliar with your writing," she replied.

"You are a poet as well."

Bess settled a tray between them. squeezed her hands to steady them before pouring a cup of ale for Jonson and passing it to him.

"I do recall thinking, when I saw your book, Where did she come from? " Jonson said, chuckling. "And then I remembered you, in the poetry salon run by the Countess of Pembroke. At which point I wondered, Where did she go ? " He leaned forward, the mug balanced on his knee. "How odd, it seemed to me, that a writer with such youthful promise might simply vanish for so many years before arriving in printed form."

folded her hands in her lap. "I have been a wife and mother."

"Neither of which excludes picking up a quill."

She met his gaze, steely. "I am unsure of why you are here, Master Jonson. Why do you play at solving a mystery where there is none?"

He sank back in his seat, regarding her. "Do you know the plays of Shakespeare?"

"Who does not?" she replied.

"And by chance, have you seen my play Every Man out of His Humour ?"

shook her head. It had come out around 1600, when she did not have coin to attend the theater. "There is a clown, Sogliardo," Jonson explained. "He pretends to be a poet, but he in fact steals poems or hires others to write them. He has money, but there is no explanation for how he received that wealth. In my play, Sogliardo wants a coat of arms more than anything else in the world."

Just like Shakespeare. When the shield was finally granted, the motto read Non Sanz Droict, Not Without Right.

"It is suggested to Sogliardo that his coat of arms bear the motto Not Without Mustard."

laughed.

Jonson leveled his gaze at her. "Most playwrights start as actors, or vice versa, did you know that, mistress? It becomes clear enough to which role one is suited. As an actor, I, for example, am not worth the price of admission to the theater…but I can write. Shakespeare began in this business as a playwright—a middling to awful one, if I may be so base—and instead went on to tread the boards. I have always wondered how he overcame his literary ineptitude to become such a celebrated poet. It simply did not add up. And such has been the root of my rivalry, as it were, with the man."

"So you seek to bury him further in the ground?" asked.

"No. I come here to relay a conversation from several years ago."

pressed her lips together.

"I was in Stratford during the spring of 1616," Jonson said. "My friend Michael Drayton—he was writing for the Lord Admiral's Men at the time—took me out to raise a glass in celebration of my folio being published. Shakespeare was at the pub and sat down with us." He flicked his glance toward . "Well, the man could not hold his beer. Ale made Shakespeare's tongue loose, and the conversation flowed in ways I did not expect. He went off about how he would have had his own folio published before mine had the source of his writing not dried up."

swallowed. "He was not visited by his muse, then?"

"?'Twas not the muse he missed, as it turned out. It was the Earl of Oxford, and others, who'd been providing the wheat for him to mill into grain. Many were part of Oxford's merry band of writers at some point—Kyd, Nashe, Middleton, Bacon—for various reasons. For Oxford and Bacon it was anonymity. But others, it was simply to have enough money to put food in their bellies, and a play with Shakespeare's name on it was a guaranteed, quick sale. When Oxford died, there were some extant plays and a few playwrights from his little cabal that continued to provide material. But then Shakespeare mentioned someone who had not been one of Oxford's men. A side deal, I imagine. He said had been—and these were his exact words—his golden goose."

turned to stare at the fire, her heart pounding.

"Of course I wished to know what he meant. is such a unique name. I had first heard it when introduced to you at Mary Sidney's literary salon, and then numerous times in the Shakespearean plays. When I said as much, Shakespeare told me that when Fletcher gave him Two Noble Kinsmen to sell, he'd renamed the object of the men's affections , a coded message that he hoped would summon the woman who had written for him some years before. So I said, plainly, You collaborate with a woman ? And Shakespeare said, Collaborated. " Jonson met her gaze. "Days later, he was dead of a fever."

"Why are you here?" said sharply.

He set down his cup. "Did you know I am editing a folio of the plays credited to Shakespeare? It is a herculean task. I cannot even say why exactly I am undertaking it, given my dislike of the fellow. But as it turns out, my rivalry had never been a fair fight—I was one man, against multitudes. And I think, mayhap, that is why I have undertaken this project." He hesitated. "Thomas Middleton modified Macbeth, adding in witches from some of his earlier work. He is writing for the King's Men now and tailoring Measure for Measure to best fit the troupe. It made me wonder if I might approach the original writers of the so-called Shakespeare plays and let them—for want of a better term—speak for themselves."

He took a roll of papers from his satchel, handing them to . She tugged at the ribbon binding them to find several plays. Resting on top was the foul copy of Othello, likely the one last used in performance.

"In case you would like to make changes," Jonson said.

felt herself nearly vibrating with tension; she was surprised a single note of worry didn't echo around them. "Whose name will be on this folio?"

"The one you—and others—made famous," Jonson said. "But your texts deserve to outlive the man who brokered them." He rose, slinging his satchel over one shoulder. "I thank you for your hospitality, mistress. And your stories. I have always wondered how Shakespeare seemed to know so much about what it meant to be a woman."

"We are human first," replied. "That's all I wanted to share."

Jonson grinned. "Think on that," he said, "when you revise."

—

What do you say, when you know the words will be your last?

Revisiting Othello was like summoning Alphonso back to life: there was so much in that story of a jealous husband, of the wife he killed. had placed herself into the text as well—choosing to literally name a character —Iago's wife, the woman strong enough to stand up to Othello after he murdered Desdemona. She threatened to expose her own husband's role in the tragedy. And then, like Desdemona, was killed by her husband—another man who did not want to hear the truth.

When had first written the play, she had not been able to imagine a happy ending for these women.

She still could not.

She turned the pages until she found a spot where her namesake character, , was describing men to her mistress, Desdemona:

They are all but stomachs, and we all but food;

They eat us hungerly, and when they are full

They belch us.

And then they blame us for their indigestion, thought.

It did not matter that Desdemona had not been unfaithful to Othello—if he believed it, it must be so.

But it also did not matter that herself had been untrue to Alphonso—because betrayal, in some cases, is indistinguishable from survival.

A woman who was unfaithful might have a hundred hidden reasons to be so.

She turned the pages until she found a later scene between Desdemona and , discussing infidelity. As she'd written it years ago, Desdemona was shocked by 's admission that there were circumstances under which she would have been unfaithful.

Would thou do such a deed for all the world? Desdemona had asked.

The world's a huge thing, her maid replied. It is a great price, for a small vice.

Now, dipped her quill in the ink.

She would not be able to argue with God about the choices she had made. She would not be able to convince society that she was not a sinner.

But her namesake could.

She added a hundred and sixty more lines in her revision, giving many of them to the outspoken servant .

I do think it is their husbands' faults

If wives do fall. Say that they slack their duties,

And pour our treasures into foreign laps;

Or else break out in peevish jealousies,

Throwing restraint upon us. Or say they strike us,

Or scant our former having in despite.

Why, we have galls, and though we have some grace,

Yet have we some revenge.

She hesitated, and then a wide smile unspooled across 's face. Suddenly, she knew exactly what to write.

Let husbands know

Their wives have sense like them. They see, and smell,

And have their palates both for sweet and sour,

As husbands have. What is it that they do

When they change us for others? Is it sport?

I think it is. And doth affection breed it?

I think it doth. Is 't frailty that thus errs?

It is so too. And have not we affections,

Desires for sport, and frailty, as men have?

Then let them use us well. Else let them know,

The ills we do, their ills instruct us so.

What was the most frightening thing one could possibly say to a man? That a woman's dreams, hopes, desires, flaws, and foibles were no different from his.

That men and women were equals.

She sat back at her desk—Henry's old school desk—and gave both Desdemona and a proper literary burial, adding lines for Desdemona. When she'd first written the play, she had barely mentioned the song sung by Desdemona's mother's maid, Barbary, as she died:

My mother had a maid called Barbary.

She was in love, and he she loved proved mad

And did forsake her. She had a song of willow,

An old thing 'twas, but it expressed her fortune,

And she died singing it. That song tonight

Will not go from my mind…

Now, though, created the very tune and lyrics for Desdemona. As her quill scratched over the margins, she thought of her father, playing his recorder, and how her mother's bearing would change as if he were the charmer and she the snake. She thought of Jeronimo and her cousins in the musicians' gallery in the Queen's Court, and the way the jagged edges of a tense political standoff could be sanded smooth with a flourish of a madrigal or a lively pavane. She thought of audiences that grieved with minor chords and soared with arpeggios.

closed her eyes and hummed the tune that circled the edges of her mind, drawing it closer until the melody tumbled and rose and took form:

The poor soul sat sighing by a sycamore tree,

Sing all a green willow.

Her hand on her bosom, her head on her knee,

Sing willow, willow, willow.

The fresh streams ran by her and murmured her moans,

Sing willow, willow, willow.

The salt tears fell from her, and softened the stones—

She stopped herself, interrupting the scene and the ballad. It would stay unfinished until the end of the play, when was killed by Iago, and she called back the refrain.

What did thy song bode, lady?

Hark, canst thou hear me? I will play the swan

And die in music.

"I will die in music," she said aloud now, her voice filling all the space in the empty room.

Just like the character , this would be her swan song.

What do you say when you know your words will be your last?

I was here.

I mattered.

—

looked down at the printed pages that sat on the oblong table, still smelling of ink and damp to the touch. Two years had passed since Jonson approached her about the folio of Shakespeare plays, and now it was coming to fruition. She did not know if he'd invited any of the other authors to see the work in progress, but she was honored to be asked.

The publishers were Edward Blount and Isaac Jaggard. Isaac's father, William, was to have been the printer, but he'd died during the time it took to compile the massive book, and so Isaac was now directing the actual production of the material. Jonson had introduced to him when she first arrived, before they'd gone to examine the copies of the front matter.

He handed her a page with an illustration of Shakespeare drawn by Martin Droeshout, an engraver.

"What do you think?" Jonson asked.

hesitated. She did not want to demean the artist, but she had known William Shakespeare, and this image of him was ridiculous. His forehead was so high as to seem deformed, his hair uneven. His doublet appeared to be worn backward, and he had two left arms. "If I were to be remembered thusly after my death," said, "I should come back to haunt you."

He threw back his head and laughed. "That is exactly what I am going for," Jonson said, his forefinger hovering over the sketch. "Mark this double line on the neck, as if he is wearing a mask."

Her lips twitched. "Clever."

"I cannot imagine anyone who knew the man being able to look at this and not read between the lines. But, just in case…"

He offered her the page that would sit opposite this bizarre engraving—a poem by Jonson, introducing the reader to the work:

This Figure, that thou here seest put,

It was for gentle Shakespeare cut,

Wherein the Graver had a strike

With Nature, to out-do the life;

O, could he but have drawn his wit

As well in brass, as he hath hit

His face, the Print would then surpass

All that was ever writ in brass.

But since he cannot, Reader, look

Not on his Picture, but his book.

"You could not have said more bluntly that the real writer isn't in this picture but rather is found in the text," said, impressed.

Jonson smirked. "Yes, well, you're a playwright. You know that sometimes the audience is clay-brained." He clapped his hands together. "Right. So this next bit is going to be a letter from Heminges and Condell."

"The actors from the King's Men?"

"The very same."

"But they have not written it yet?" asked.

"They were never asked," Jonson said. "The entirety of this folio is deception. Plus, when have you ever known actors to be able to write anything coherent themselves? They are but heralds crying out what the castle wishes known. I am still working on their false compliments, but I shall make them sufficiently superfluous, so that it is impossible to believe this is the work of a man rather than a God." He extemporized. "?‘His mind and hand went together'…‘we have scarce received from him a blot in his papers'…all that rot."

"Is that not too much, sir?" asked. "You hope to stoke doubt, not cause a riot."

He raised a brow. "Does your Hamlet not substitute a forged copy of the letter Claudius uses to have him executed?"

She rolled her eyes and touched another loose page, this one titled To the memory of my beloved, the Author Mr. William Shakespeare: And what he hath left us. "That's quite inclusive," said.

"One tries."

Jonson began to read his poem:

To draw no envy (Shakespeare) on thy name

Am I thus ample to thy Book, and Fame;

While I confess thy writings to be such,

As neither Man, nor Muse, can praise too much;

covered her mouth with her hand, stifling laughter. "Is it not so?" Jonson challenged. "You cannot praise work that a man never wrote." He skated his finger down the page. "This next bit is for you."

These are, as some infamous Bawd, or Whore

Should praise a Matron. What could hurt her more?

False praise, he was suggesting, was as distasteful as a harlot comparing herself to a godly wife. It was an odd metaphor for a poet of Jonson's caliber to choose, since the playwrights who would be erroneously comparing themselves to the great Shakespeare were all men.

Unless, of course, they weren't.

"Oh, this is the best part," Jonson said gleefully.

My Shakespeare, rise; I will not lodge thee by

Chaucer or Spenser or bid Beaumont lie

A little further, to make thee a room.

Thou are a monument, without a tomb,

And art alive still, while thy Book doth live

And we have wits to read, and praise to give.

All of it was true. Shakespeare was not buried in Poets' Corner of Westminster Abbey with Chaucer or Spenser or Beaumont, the great literati. And compliments were due not to him but to the texts within.

It was subversive and smart, for those in the know. But if you bought the Folio and you were not reading carefully, you would simply think Jonson, like everyone else, believed Shakespeare was worthy of temples erected in his name, flowers strewn in the wake of his coffin, mourners tearing out their hair.

Jonson smoothed the edges of the paper, settling it carefully back onto the long table. "What think you?"

"It is not a set of plays you've created, but a series of puzzles," said.

He clasped a hand over his heart. "Guilty, mistress. I cannot bear the thought of that gull being anointed with laurels others carried."

"It was our choice," said softly. The alternative would have been to remain unheard. She may have used someone else's name, but the words had been her own.

She looked at Jonson, who had inked his own demons and regret and jealousy into these poems of his. "Think you one day someone will crack this cipher? Long after we both are gone?"

He met her gaze. "With time and thought, and all these clues," Jonson said, "how could they not?"

—

It was not long after the Folio was printed that noticed something different about her son. Henry would be in the middle of a conversation and suddenly start to laugh, as if he'd heard a joke that no one else could. He missed suppers, and more than once she found him sneaking into the house in the wee hours of the morning. His laundry bore grass stains and mud patches, hardly normal for a flutist, and she found herself remembering her own hems, stained from rolling in the marshy grass with Southampton.

When, one day, he shyly brought sweet, candy-cheeked Joyce Mansfield to meet her, she already knew that this was the woman he would marry.

On the day of her son's wedding, dressed in the finest clothing she had: a red silk gown that made her skin look like rich honey and her hair as blue-black as the wing of a crow. Joyce was at her family's home; they would meet at the church.

The ceremony was at midday, and as the sun crawled higher through a streaky web of clouds, finished arranging the bread and meats that would be part of the wedding meal for her relatives and Henry's new family. Bess fluttered beside her, having borrowed pitchers and mugs from neighbors to hold ale. Bess had been included, of course, as a guest at Henry's wedding—she had raised that boy as much as herself had.

"Henry!" called again, her voice carrying up the narrow stairs.

Bess smiled. "Nervous bridegroom. Mayhap he don't wish to be the center of attention."

"I doubt it. He's played instruments before kings and queens. What is standing up before a priest?"

"Everything, when it's the rest of yer life, mistress. As a child, he did not have such a fine model of a marriage."

looked at her maid, surprised that this thought had not occurred to her before. "Bess," she suggested, "why don't you run up to the church, and let them know we're on our way?"

She climbed the stairs to Henry's room and knocked softly on the closed door. When he didn't answer, she opened it and peered inside. "Henry?"

He lay on his bed, facedown, still in his shirtsleeves and hose.

"Are you well?" asked, sitting down on the mattress beside him, her skirts rustling. She placed her hand on the small of his back, the way she had when he was little and woke from a nightmare.

He rolled to his side, and to her surprise, his eyes were rimmed red. "Henry," she said, "have you changed your mind? We can…" She grasped at thoughts. "Pack a satchel. Hire a horse, if we must. We can spirit you out of London before anyone even knows you've broken a promise—"

"Mama," Henry quietly interrupted. "What if I'm like him?"

She could feel the ghost of Alphonso. He was just there, in the cold breath at the back of her neck, in the flash of light in the looking glass. "There is not a bone in your body that is like his," replied.

Henry sat up, legs crossed on the mattress. "So it's true."

They had never spoken of his paternity. What mother would tell her child he was illegitimate; that she had been a courtesan; that he was the reason she had lived as another man's shame for so many years?

"Children can be cruel," Henry said, by way of explanation.

He watched the chase of emotions on her face: fear, embarrassment, pain, resolve. picked through words as if she were choosing cherries, trying to find only the sweetest fruit to offer him. "Your…real father…was a good man," she said.

"I wish I'd met him," Henry sighed.

realized two things in that moment: that he assumed Hunsdon was his father—Hunsdon, who had died when he was a baby. Or perhaps Henry was so young when she was being courted by Southampton that he did not remember the time they had spent together.

Then again, could not definitively say which of the two men was Henry's father.

"Here is what I think," she said. "Whether your father was a good man does not signify. The girl who is waiting for you at the church is marrying you. She loves you, Henry, I can see it every time you come into a room and she turns like a flower to the sun. She loves you because you are a good man."

He puzzled over her words as if they were a song he was writing, and if he just concentrated hard enough, the melody would manifest. "I may not know how to be a husband," he said thoughtfully, "but I know how to love."

shook her head and laughed. "Pity your poor mother's ears, Henry! I am not certain I need to hear the details—"

He grinned. "I meant that I know to put someone first, no matter what." Henry took her hand and squeezed. "You taught me that."

—

A year later, shared lodging with Henry and Joyce. She'd begun a new trade—brewing ale, and selling her wares to a tavern at the end of the street. One morning she was at market, haggling over the price of a large canvas sack of malt, when she heard the word Southampton uttered by two matrons who were trading the currency of court gossip.

Did you hear?

Southampton had been in the Netherlands, commanding volunteers to fight against the Spanish.

Did you know?

He had only just arrived at Roosendaal when his son, Lord Wriothesley, had contracted a fever.

What a pity.

When the young man died, his father had brought his body to Bergen op Zoom and had been laid low by the same fever.

Such devotion.

Their bodies had returned to England with a heroes' welcome.

Imagine losing both a husband and a son.

They'd be buried in Titchfield.

That poor wife.

The next moment was walking—heart pumping, hands shaking in the cold. She continued until she stood on the bank of the Thames and stared toward Southwark, where she and Southampton used to meet.

She'd had no contact from him after he intervened in the lawsuit about Alphonso's hay patent—and that had turned out to be a pyrrhic victory. In spite of the judge ruling in her favor, she received no payment from Innocent. had spent more years apart from Southampton now than she'd had with him. His distance was a blessing, because she truly believed that seeing him again would only make the pain more acute.

But she also believed that there was an invisible thread that snaked from her heart to his. She was certain that when he crossed her mind in the middle of something mundane—baking bread, sweeping the hearth—it was because he had thought of her at that exact moment in the soft center of his own day. had also believed that the reason she was still alive and so many she loved were not was that she and Southampton were meant to inhabit the same time and place, even if they were not together.

She'd thought: If I die, he will know. He will be on horseback and suddenly go cold as ice. He will be in a conversation and lose all his thoughts. He will look out the window at the sky and know that even if it seems as it did a moment ago, everything has altered.

She'd thought the same would hold true for herself, were he the one to die first.

But Southampton was gone, and had she not been buying malt at that moment the gossips had passed, she might not have even known.

She doubled over as if she had been struck hard in the belly. Circling through her head was a single thought: she hadn't gotten to say goodbye.

stood at the edge of the river until her tears froze on her eyelashes. A constable ambled past. "Mistress?" he asked. "Are ye well?"

She was broken and hollow.

She was alone.

looked at the watchman. "I will be," she said.

—

She sold the ale she had stockpiled at home, and then negotiated with the tavern owner to sell him all her brew-making supplies. She scrawled a note for Henry, who would return from playing for the King sometime before Twelfth Night. did not know how long this would take, and she did not want her son to worry.

She, who had never ridden well, bought a horse. She wore three layers of kirtles and two cloaks, as buttoned up against the biting wind and snow as she could be. The first day, she managed only five miles before she had to stop at an inn and rest her sore muscles. No one questioned an old woman traveling alone; she had nothing worth stealing—not belongings or beauty or chastity.

On the third day, she sold the horse to an innkeeper and paid a farmer and his wife hauling a cart south to let her ride in the back with the timber they were transporting.

The farmer was a taciturn, burly man who likely had grown more and more silent in the incessant tide of his wife's chatter. engaged politely at first: Yes, she was a widow. No, she and her late husband had not been blessed with children. Yes, she was headed to Titchfield for Christmastide, to visit her sister. No, she had never been this far south before. Then she began to feign sleep just for a moment's peace.

Despite the cold, they passed others traveling. There were drovers herding sheep, men selling grain, crates of poultry and pigs. Twice the cart hit a trough and they had to empty it entirely so that a wheel could be repaired, leaving with broken fingernails and splinters she had to pull with her teeth. Once, a tree had fallen and needed to be chopped before they could pass. Snow made the travel a crawl.

On the sixth day, the farmer and his wife left her at the road that would take them to Poole. thanked them, paid for her passage, and set off on foot for the last sixteen miles to Titchfield.

By the time she reached the town where Southampton's barony sat, she was, quite literally, numb. Her hair was white with falling snow; her hands curled inside her gloves. Inside her thin boots, she could not feel her feet.

She had arrived on January 7, after Twelfth Night, when Christmastide celebrations had ended and the village was back to business as usual. In this, she was lucky; surely the entirety of the town would have been at church just a day earlier. St. Peter's sat in the center, bordered by a graveyard as white as a virgin's robe.

It was there began her search. But there was no disturbed ground, no maw of earth that had been recently dug to accommodate a coffin. She realized her mistake almost immediately: the Southampton family would of course have a vault inside the church.

The wooden doors, thank God, were unlocked. Inside it was only nominally warmer. waited for her fingers to burn and tingle, proof of life, before she went farther.

The tomb was easy to find, draped with lilies and white roses. It sat separated from the pews and the nave and the altar by a black iron gate. Four obelisks formed the corners of the marble monument, with the carved form of the second earl's wife lying on a stone bier. She was flanked by stone effigies of the first and second earls of Southampton.

It was her love's mother, Mary, who had commissioned the tomb. She had been the daughter of Viscount Montagu. It was why had used that family name in Romeo and Juliet, the first play she wrote while thinking about Southampton.

found herself picturing Romeo fighting his way into the crypt until he could hold with his own arms what he thought to be the body of Juliet.

Henry would not be in these stone coffins; his body would be in a crypt somewhere below.

She did not have access to the actual vault. In fact, the gate surrounding the tomb was locked. looked around, but the church was empty. She shed her cloak and set her satchel on the tile floor, then hiked her skirts up in a knot between her legs. With a wince for her stiff limbs, she climbed the iron gate and dropped inside, stepping toward the marble tomb.

circled the stone monument, looking for an entry to the crypt. When she could not locate one, she fell to her knees in front of a panel that depicted two children praying. She touched her fingers to the smooth cheek of the marble boy and thought about her own son, and the daughter that she and Southampton had conceived.

She borrowed Romeo's words. "Here's to my love," she murmured.

She flattened herself on the cold floor, as close to the tomb as she could get. She had heard that in the tombs of nobility, corpses were preserved in honey, and she hoped this was true, so that his afterlife would be sweet.

She peeled back the years, imagining the feel of Southampton's stubble scratching her cheek, the pliant heat of his arms around her. She remembered how his gemstone eyes would darken when he caught sight of her coming toward him. She thought of the time that he'd tried to teach her to whistle, and they had laughed so hard at her abject failure that they could not catch their breath.

Then she closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep beside Southampton one final time.

—

Winter softened into spring, then ripened into summer. Henry's wife fell pregnant and lost the babe, remaining so ill that she sometimes could not even stand up from bed. She was weak and wan, and so sourced chamomile and gingerroot and peppermint from the apothecary, hoping to create a tea that would allow Joyce to keep food down and regain her strength.

She was humming to herself as she turned onto her street, but the notes fell away as she noticed a nobleman standing in front of her door.

Not a nobleman, exactly. More like a young buck. He couldn't have been more than sixteen, but he was dressed as finely as a courtier. Perhaps a boy hoping for Henry to play at a fete. "If you've come to see my son," said, "I'm afraid he is not at home."

"Mistress Lanier?" the boy said, his face lighting with recognition.

He was staring at her so intently that she felt a shudder race down her spine. "Sir?" she asked. "Have we met?"

"In a manner," he said. He glanced down the street at a woman who was beating a feather bed and watching them nosily. "Have you a place we might speak privately?"

nodded, inviting him into her home. Joyce was sleeping, and Bess was still at market. She offered him ale, which he declined. He shifted uncomfortably, as if he could not find the words to explain what he wished.

She waited, and then she sighed. "You have me at a disadvantage, sir," said. "As you know me, yet I do not know you."

"I am Southampton," the boy said, and she fell back as if she'd been struck.

The fourth Earl of Southampton did not look like his father. He had black hair and dark eyes and narrow features. He could likely feel her gaze roaming over his face, and he offered a small smile. "It is said I take after my mother," he offered.

"I am sorry for your loss, my lord," said.

"I am sorry for yours," he replied. He pulled a small velvet pouch from the inside of his doublet. Reaching for her hand, he spilled the contents into her palm. 's own face, in miniature, looked up at her.

"This was among his personal effects, when he…when his body was returned to us," the young earl said. "He kept it with him, always. When I was just a boy, I found it once on his dressing table and he thrashed me for even touching it. It was the only time he paid attention to me, in truth." He took a step backward, as if he knew he'd said too much. "I think you should keep it, mistress. I would not wish for my mother to have to stumble upon this and suffer the loss of him twice."

She nodded, closing her hands around the small brooch. The filigree of the frame bit into her skin. She wondered to whom the young man had shown the tiny painting to identify her by name. If the courtier who had seen it said, Oh yes, that's Hunsdon's former piece. "Thank you, my lord," managed.

"Call me Thomas. Please." He looked at her for a long moment. "You made him happy?"

How to answer? She did not know his history and did not deserve to. Had Thomas been the product of a marriage that was merely a business transaction? Had he never seen love modeled for him? Had he wondered what made his father distant, what piece of the man he would never have?

"I believe I did, for a while," said softly.

He jerked his chin, as if coming to a decision. "I am glad of it." He turned, preparing to leave.

"Wait," called. "He, too, was young, when he became earl." She wanted to give him a gift, as he had given her. "He didn't like it."

Thomas smiled ruefully. "Perhaps we have something in common after all."

"Very few of us get the lives we wish for," said.

The boy let the words settle between them. "All the more reason," he said gently, "to find those few minutes that we are happy." He started for the door. "God be with you, mistress."

When he left, stood in the silence, looking at the woman she used to be. She turned on her heel and went into her bedroom. She no longer kept the miniature of Southampton hidden in her feather bed; she had no reason to. Instead, it was in a small wooden chest with the most precious things she owned: her first publication, a ribbon Kit had used as a bookmark, a wooden heart that her son had whittled for her.

She slipped the miniature inside, nestling it beside the ivory oval with Southampton's portrait. "There," said, softly touching her fingertips to both paintings.

They were tangible proof that, once, she had been beloved. That she had loved.

She liked to think that Southampton, wherever he was now, was watching. That he knew, too, they were finally together.

—

When had been younger, she had drawn attention at times she did not wish to, due to her dark skin and light eyes and plush lips. It had been her beauty that engaged Hunsdon, that ensorcelled Southampton, that enraged Alphonso. But as she aged, her features faded.

The older women grew, the more invisible they became. As the currency of her face and form diminished—the only valuable parts of a woman, to society—so did she. Perhaps as a woman got older, her body and mind made the unconscious decision to live more in the past than the here and now—and that was why she hardly seemed present. Even in her own home, now occupied by Henry and Joyce and three-year-old Mary and baby Harry, often felt lonely. Today, the family was chattering about when Henry was going to court again and whether Harry had a tooth coming in. realized it had been hours since she had uttered a word…and no one missed her contributions.

"Well," Henry said, pushing back from the table where he had broken his fast. "If I am to ride with the others, I cannot be late." He was now an official flutist for the King, which provided security and income, and he traveled the circuit as the royal family decamped from palace to palace. had lost track of where they were headed today.

He wrapped his arms around Joyce's middle from behind. She squealed, dimpling at him over her shoulder. If was proud of anything, it was that Henry had found himself a love match. Little Harry was banging a spoon on the table while he sat on Bess's lap as she tried to feed him some sort of mash that popped out of his mouth as quickly as she popped it in. Mary lifted her arms to be picked up by Henry. "Papa," she cried, "I don't want you to go."

He stepped away from his wife and whirled his daughter into the air. "But," he reminded her, "I always come back, do I not?"

In her silence, from the sidelines, watched the play before her like the spectator she had become. A comedy, she thought. Henry has created his own happy ending.

Suddenly there was a scream as Mary fell hard to the stone floor. She started sobbing, and Joyce rushed to her side to soothe her. Harry burst into fearful tears at the clatter, too, distracting Bess—which meant that only saw what had happened.

One moment her son had been tossing his little girl into the air with a wide smile on his face, and the next, he had crumpled like a rag, his entire body buckling as he clutched his hand over his chest.

"Henry!" she cried, vaulting from the table to kneel at his side. He had collapsed on his belly and she rolled him over, seeing the blood gush from where he'd hit his nose, and his hand still spasming over his chest. His eyes were wide and frightened, the silver sparking like lightning. "Mama…" The tendons of his throat stretched, his face a rictus of agony.

She grabbed his hand. "Henry, I'm right here."

By now, Joyce realized he had fallen. She threw herself across his body, crying, until grabbed her hard by her shoulders. "Take the children away," she said, her voice low and fierce. "We must find a doctor."

"Daddy?" Mary said, her face a pinched white oval.

" Joyce, " ordered, and her daughter-in-law snapped into action, sweeping the little girl into her arms and plucking the baby from Bess's lap.

"I'll go for the doctor," Bess said, and she ran out the door.

heard Joyce bustling the children up the stairs, but she did not take her eyes off Henry's face. He was staring at her the way he had as a child, when thunderstorms shook the beams of the ceiling, when nightmares clawed at him from beneath the bed: as if her proximity was the only thing keeping danger at bay. "I am here," whispered again, squeezing his hand.

"Mama." He swallowed, struggling, gasping. His body was tighter than the strings of a lute. His fingers curled into a fist over his ribs, and she knew—even though she was no physician—that was what had seized up inside him.

An apoplexy.

Henry's heart, the one constant in her life. It had beat for her, it had bled for her, it had been large enough to hold her mistakes. How could she not have anticipated that it would break underneath the load it had borne for so many years?

Joyce returned, falling to her knees on Henry's other side. "You will be well, my sweet," she said, a smile pasted on a face streaked with tears.

Henry looked at her, and then turned back to . "Mama, promise."

She could not speak. Her throat was dammed.

"Love them," Henry ground out, and the light banked in his eyes.

—

A year after Henry died, so did Joyce.

At sixty-six, was raising Mary and Harry. She, who had always wanted more children, now had two of the sweetest in her care. She read to them, she fed them, she coddled them, she sang to them. The lullaby they liked the most was the tune she had written for Desdemona in the revision to Othello: "Willow, willow, willow." It had become the story of her life. Even as the tree's branches were dragged low by wind or rain or ice, it never broke. It gave, just enough, to survive.

As the money she had received for her share of the Folio dried up, found herself struggling to provide for her grandchildren. Her cousin Jeronimo had died earlier that year, so she did not have him to turn to. When was desperate for income to cover expenses for her household and Alma's, she sued Alphonso's other brother, Clement, who had taken over the hay patent after Innocent's death.

She sat in the King's Bench courtroom at Westminster Hall, once again facing down a relative of Alphonso's: she had played this scene before. The older she grew, the more her life felt like that. She would be at the table with her hands in a heap of flour and little Mary beside her, fashioning a small mouse out of dough that would be baked in the ashes of the hearth, just like her father had done for at her age. She would hold Harry in her arms as they crossed the Thames in a wherry, pointing at the splash of the oars and telling him stories of sea monsters who lived in the waves and the mermaids they loved, and she would be whisked back to a similar voyage with Henry in her arms.

Sometimes felt so old. Other times she was twenty-three, her face flushed with sunlight and lovemaking, the whole of her life spread out before her like a vibrant bolt of silk. She was a strange chimera—an old woman's form wrapped like loose batting around a young woman's dreams. Back then she had believed that every action, every step, would bring her closer to God. Now she knew it was so, but in a much more literal way. When you knew you would be gone soon, what scores did you settle before you left?

She knew she had said these same phrases before to a chief justice about assumpsit and debts owed.

She glanced over her shoulder, hoping for a ghost.

"I have two grandchildren to provide for," she told the chief justice.

That last spoken sentence, at least, was new.

The chief justice pushed his spectacles up his nose. "You are saying, Mistress Lanier, that although you were owed twenty pounds over these years, you have received only eight pounds?"

"That is correct, sir."

He turned to Clement. "What say you?"

Like all of Alphonso's brothers, he had a face like a fox—black eyes, twitchy nose. "This is the first I've heard of it."

"He lies," snapped.

The serjeant representing Clement shuffled through some papers. "A man cannot be blamed for that which he does not know."

"Why not?" said. "Women are, all the time."

There was a collective huff in the courtroom, and for a moment, wondered if she had overstepped. She knew matrons who'd said less provocative words yet had been thrown into prison on the presumption of witchery.

But the chief justice laughed. "Mistress, I hope your grandchildren pay heed to you, lest they face the sharp edge of your tongue. Master Lanier, you will be obliged to pay Mistress Lanier the remaining twelve pounds owed."

sat for a moment, staring down at her hands as if they belonged to a stranger: the brown age spots, the fine wrinkles. These were not the graceful fingers of a courtesan and had not been so for a long time. They were the hands of a woman who had worked hard to survive. They had clawed her to safety, grabbed at wishes, mixed and baked and bleached and swept, shaken and soothed, held her son and her son's son, bled ink. They told her story.

glanced over her shoulder again, wishing for Southampton, but this time he wasn't there.

This time, had rescued herself.

—

The bride was missing. Henry Young stood at the altar with the priest, shifting uncomfortably from side to side. The groom's mother and uncle kept darting glances across the church to the pew where sat beside her grandson. "Gram," Harry whispered, "where is Badger?"

His voice cracked on the endearment he used for his sister—the endearment that he'd used to taunt her when they were small. Back then, it had been the way little Harry could get a surefire rise out of Mary, nearly four years older and apt to ignore him. Now the word held all the affection he felt for his sister, and his worry. At fourteen Harry was only trying on the shape of manhood, with his narrow shoulders broadening and fuzz on his upper lip—but his protective instincts were already firm. "Do you think she's well?"

didn't know how to answer that. She and Harry had left Mary, in her finest dress with a crown of flowers in her hair, in the vestibule at the rear of the church. The girl had seemed hopeful, happy.

She stood, smiling, and put her hand on Harry's arm. "Leave it with me," she said. The Young family began whispering to each other; she knew that they felt Henry was marrying below their station already; this was yet another strike against Mary. leaned toward Harry, murmuring, "Do keep them from bloodshed."

When she reached the vestibule she knocked softly. The door swung open beneath her hand, but the room was empty.

glanced toward the waiting groom and the clergyman, and then slipped quietly into the churchyard and down the street, deep in thought. Where would Mary have gone?

She found herself gravitating not toward their lodging but to the part of town where they had lived when her son and his wife were still alive. had moved several times since then with her grandchildren and Bess. But that first set of rooms—where she had become a widow, where Henry had brought his new wife, where Mary had been born—held the happiest ghosts. When she thought back to those apartments, she heard the music of Henry's flute and a crackling hearth and the giggles of babes. It was the symphony of family.

Perhaps Mary felt the same.

New renters lived in the rooms now, but there was a small patch of woods not far away, a garden that had once belonged to a grand lord and had been lured back to wildness. picked through a thicket that tore at her stockings until she found the elm tree she herself had taught her grandchildren how to climb. On the overgrown grass at its base sat a flower crown. glanced up to see two booted feet dangling from an upper limb. Mary's face was obscured by leaves and branches.

"Well," said. "I certainly can't climb up there anymore, so you'd best get down."

Mary's face peered through the greenery. "You found me," she said.

"Always," promised. She waited for the girl to make her way to the ground, landing light as a cat at her side.

"Does everyone hate me?" Mary asked, her eyes damp.

threaded her arm through her granddaughter's. "Nobody hates you," she said. "Do you wish to talk about it?"

"What if I don't?"

"Then we shall sit here," said, "until the sun goes down, and rises again."

A small laugh hiccuped out of Mary. "We'll grow hungry."

"Well," agreed, "there is that." She smoothed the girl's hair. "What is it, sweetling?"

"I cannot bear to marry him," Mary burst out.

had been expecting this. "You are young yet." Mary was only seventeen. "You do not have to be in a rush."

"But I love him!"

"If he loves you," replied, "he will wait until you're ready."

Mary leaned against the wide trunk of the tree, her brow pinched. "When you married, Gram," she asked, "were you scared?"

How to respond? had been furious, humiliated, broken. She had not wanted Alphonso; she would have run to the ends of England to get away from him, if it were possible. "What you're feeling is what every bride feels," she said finally.

Mary seemed relieved. "You understand then how terrifying it is to care so much." Another tear streaked down her cheek. "What if I lose Henry, too?"

This was not what had expected after all. Mary wasn't having second thoughts. Instead she suffered from a surfeit of good sense: once you had everything you'd ever wished for, you could not help but fear the moment you wouldn't.

She folded her granddaughter into her arms. Mary's father and mother had died in quick succession. could not speak to loving a spouse so wholly, but she knew what it was to give yourself completely to someone, only to be left behind. They took the best parts of you with them. "Oh, chicken," she sighed. "That's the cost of finding your soulmate."

"If I do not marry," Mary said stubbornly, "then I'll never have to worry about living without him."

"Do you truly think your feelings for Henry will fade simply because you do not put your name beside his in the church register? If he's the one for you, and you choose not to spend your days with him out of fear of loving too much, you're only punishing yourself." smiled gently. "He adores you, Mary."

"I know."

"There is so much in the world to diminish us. If you find someone or something that makes you feel larger than life, my darling, grab tight with both hands. You may be thrown to the ground at some point. You may break into pieces." touched her granddaughter's cheek. "But, oh, Mary…what a ride."

Mary reached for her flower crown and turned it in her hands like a wheel. "Even though it hurts?" she asked, her voice small.

looked into the girl's eyes. They were silver; her eyes, her son's eyes. Mary would go on to marry Henry Young, and they would have a daughter one day with the same unusual eyes. That daughter would have a daughter, and so on, and so on—passing along the gaze that gleamed like a polished blade, that could cut as cleanly. But 's features were not all that would be handed down through generations. She imagined Mary telling her own granddaughter one day that a life well loved was a life well lived. "Even though it hurts," repeated, nodding.

"I wish my parents could be here at the wedding," Mary confessed.

"They will be," promised. So would Southampton and Hunsdon, Jeronimo and Alma, Odyllia—all the people whose threads were woven into the history of this sensitive, beautiful young woman. Maybe that was the lesson had been struggling to learn all this time—that being remembered by many was far less important than being remembered by a few who mattered.

Suddenly Mary turned a panicked gaze toward her. "What excuse shall I give?"

"That you forgot to bank the fire."

"But it is June. There is no fire in the hearth."

"A wise husband," said, smiling, "knows better than to contradict his wife." She took the flower crown and set it on her granddaughter's red hair. "There," she pronounced. "You are perfect."

As if the coronet had transformed her, Mary dashed forward, any lingering doubt evaporating like mist. She leaped into the brambles that carpeted the forest floor. "Come, Gram," she teased. "We are already late!"

laughed. "Yes, yes," she said. She ran a few steps until a cough rattled her, and she fought to catch her breath.

"Gram?" Mary asked, turning back. "Are you well?"

held one hand to her chest, the other resting on her hip. She took small sips of air. "My granddaughter is getting married," she said brightly. "I have never been better."

—

It had begun with the cough, and had evolved into an ailment that even children suffered, that herself had contracted and recovered from a dozen or more times over the course of her seventy-six years. She felt her skin sear, too sensitive even to be covered by the light blanket Bess tried to throw over her. She marveled that she had survived multiple outbreaks of the plague in England, yet would be felled by a common cold.

But it hadn't been common. The cough had only gotten worse, dry and hacking. The scratch in the back of her throat had turned pustulant and swollen. Then the fever had come, bringing a strange haze that blurred the line between waking and sleep.

She did not think it would be long now.

Bess tried to spoon cool ale into her mouth, but knocked the liquid away. "Bring me…" she rasped. She lifted a shaking hand, pointing to the latched wooden box that sat beside her hairbrush.

"Yes, mistress," Bess said, letting go of her hand only to do her bidding. Bess, who'd been so long at 's side.

She starting coughing again, and Bess hauled her slight frame more upright, so that she could breathe easier. The wooden box sat in her lap, the blanket pooled around it. tried to undo the clasp, and when she couldn't, Bess reached over to flip it free.

The wooden heart that her son had carved her from wood years ago was gone; she'd given it to Harry when he came to visit earlier today—or had that been yesterday? She had given Mary the ribbon that once had belonged to Kit. There was relief in knowing they were settled. Mary and her husband would take care of Harry until he struck out on his own.

She knew they would remember her as the grandmother who had raised them, who had held them when they were ill. The one who taught them how to split open the seedlings of a maple with your thumb and drop them from a height so that they plummeted from the sky. She'd told them how a falcon's broken wing could be fixed with the feather of another bird, knit together like new. She'd described how a pineapple burst on your tongue, sweet and sour all at once. And she'd spun them so many stories, of doomed lovers and jealous faeries and clever girls, playing all the parts at once.

pushed the box toward Bess. "Keep these for me, when I am gone."

The maid peered inside. Two miniatures stared up at her, faces Bess would easily recognize. "Mistress, I cannot—"

"There will come a time when you may need to trade them for coin," interrupted. "When you do, all I ask is that you sell them together."

Bess nodded, her fingertips glancing over the ivory oval of Southampton's portrait, and the spikier edge of 's. Beneath them, yellowed and folded into quarters, was the first play had ever written. Arden of Faversham curled at the edges, cushioning the bottom of the box as newsprint lined a birdcage. Bess, who had never learned to read, would think it nothing more than padding to keep the miniatures safe and dry.

Perhaps that was the only thing it was good for, after all.

She could hear Bess crying softly, and she reached for the maid's hand. "You have been my constant," whispered. "I am glad it was you with me, at the end."

She wished she could say more. She wished there were enough words to thank Bess. She wished she could apologize for taking the maid, all those years ago, from the relative comfort of Somerset House and consigning her to a service where she had once shared a bed with her mistress to ensure wasn't killed by her husband.

closed her eyes. All right, God, she thought. I am ready.

One moment, was clutching the edge of the blanket so tight, and the next, she was not.

She was standing, shivering in her shift, but she was not the woman she had been that morning. The gray tangle of her hair was again a black braid twining halfway down her back. Her arms were smooth, her face unlined. Her eyes were so clear that the edges of the doorway in front of her were sharper than a knife.

She knew this door. It was the one that had led from the Baron's study to the gardens behind Willoughby House. Back then had struggled to unlatch the heavy door, to escape to the hedges, where she could create make-believe worlds.

Now, when reached for the handle, it opened easily.

It did not lead outside, however. She found herself in a white space with no walls or ceiling or floor. It was just light, as if she'd blinked and found herself on the glowing surface of the moon.

"Hello."

When she heard a man's voice behind her, she spun so fast she nearly tripped. Her heart slugged against her ribs. Please let it be him who has come for me.

But when her eyes adjusted, it was not Southampton at all. It was Kit, arms folded, impatient, as if he'd been there for a while.

"Oh," cried. "I've missed you."

His eyes gleamed. "Death, it turns out, is an excellent professional move," Kit said. "But, Mouse, we've all been waiting for you."

She took a step forward and realized that there was nothing tethering her. "You…have?"

"You did not think we would start without you, did you?"

There was so much she wanted to ask. She heard herself say, "Will they know me?"

Kit softened. "You've done so much more than most women could," he said.

Her eyes filled with tears. "I do not think it made a difference."

"Did it not? Even if you do not feel the shade of the tree you planted, others will."

She looked up at him. "But what of the person who planted the seed?"

"Is that more important than what she produced?"

"Why must it be one or the other?" challenged. "Why not both?"

He held out his hand. "Mouse?"

She took it, and they began walking. Since everything was painfully white, she could not see any progress they made. "You know, it takes a hundred years for a river to change course, from silt or stone deposits under the surface," Kit said. "No one sees what's causing it, but a century later, the water flows in a different direction. No one can dispute the change."

considered this. Facts, seen from different angles, could be dismissed as fictions, and vice versa. There was a reason you could not create history without writing the word story.

She looked at the dear, familiar face of her friend. "How far do we have to go?"

"Ages," Kit replied.

glanced down to see something beneath her feet, a black curl of smoke that pressed against each sole whenever she took a step. No, not smoke. Words. One for each tread. She began to string them together, speaking haltingly out loud. " From…hence…your memory…death cannot take, " she read. " Although in me each part will be forgotten…Your name from hence immortal life shall have… "

Kit had stopped walking. " Though I, once gone, to all the world must die. " He smiled at . "I rather liked that one."

It had been a sonnet, one she'd traded to Shakespeare like a magic bean from a fairy tale in hopes that the greater reward would be hers.

The poetry would last. The poet would not.

swallowed, because she knew that Kit was using her poem to say it was time, it was the end. Her eyes darted over his shoulder, hoping to see what came next. But what she spied was unfamiliar: buildings that pierced clouds, girls dressed like boys, carriages pulled by sorcery.

She thought, for just a moment, there was something she recognized.

A theater. An audience. A woman with silver eyes. A comedy, a tragedy.

There once was a girl who became invisible so that her words might not be.

She turned to ask Kit about this vision, but he was gone, and she was no longer in the white space. She was sitting on a carved bench beneath the embrace of a lush emerald willow, a tale on her tongue.

There once was a girl, thought: A beginning and an end.

There was poetry that, once spoken, could not be unheard.

There was a story, whether or not others ever chose to listen.