Shakespeare was awakened by trampling in the brush. Clay-cold and rigid, his clothes damp with morning dew, he opened his eyes but didn’t move. Dawn was waging battle against a metallic sky. He reached for his falchion, grasping the handle tightly, and waited.
Sounds of footsteps. He sprung upward. A startled gasp and a shower of bilberries. Then he saw her.
She was a plump girl, no more than sixteen, with dark, loose hair and alabaster skin—a perfect white except for smidges of rosy pink on her nose and cheeks. Some of her front teeth were missing.
“Ho, wench,” Shakespeare said. “What are you doing here alone at this hour?”
The girl cowered in the brush, fear etched in her black eyes.
“Met your lover, did you?” Shakespeare said.
She said nothing. Just quivered in the bushes. An idiot to be sure, he thought.
“Be gone,” he said testily.
She didn’t move. It was then that he noticed the empty basket stained a deep plum. He bent down, picked it up and tossed it over. It hit her on the left leg, but she didn’t react.
“Picking berries, were you?”
Nothing.
“Go on,” he said. “I’ll not be bothering you.”
She smiled. Despite the toothless gaps, she was pretty. Shakespeare felt a tug under his breeches.
“Off with you,” he said. “Lest you be enticing the man to act the animal.”
She smiled again and hiked up her skirt.
Dumb, he thought. But not deaf.
She was as warm as fresh milk, as sweet as cream and as soft as butter.
She was also not a mute. As she lay, nestled in his arms, she told him her story.
She was the bastard daughter of a whore, orphaned at eleven when her mother died of sweating sickness. Left destitute, she continued her mother’s profession of providing aid and comfort to the village men. A year ago, six months pregnant, she’d been inflicted with ague. The baby had died in her belly. Vividly she described to him her fits and fevers, her bloody vomit and stools.
But somehow she had survived, nursed her ills with poppy water, the juice of red nettles, juniper berries, and flat ale with dragon water. She was still weak, she claimed, but at least she was alive. And yes, she was still a punk servicing the local men as well as the foreigner. She lived in a village not far away from this spot.
When she wasn’t whoring, she was busy in her still room, preparing remedies and potions. Rising early, three or four in the morn, she’d come to the heather moors to pick bilberries and herbs for her medicines. They were well received throughout the countryside, and often in the plague-infested summertimes, her special mixtures made her more money than her stewing. The only thing that worried her was talk that she was a witch.
Nay, tis not so, she had said. Simply flapping tongues of the gossip mongers.
As she told her tale, her hands moved over Shakespeare’s body, reawakening his lust once again. He stroked her pillowy thighs, parted them and boarded her. Afterward he offered her money, but she had refused.
Your kindness, good sir. Tis ’nough.
He stood up and brushed dirt off his hose.
“Where is your village?” he asked.
“Yonder,” she said, pointing to her left.
“Will you accompany me there?”
She smiled. “Me whorin’ is free, but me guidin’ will be costin’ ye.”
“A survivor you are.”
“Aye. Ten shillings.”
Shakespeare gasped. “That’s robbery!”
The toothless smile widened to a grin.
“Ifin it be too much, you be findin’ it yourself.”
“Blood of a Jew, you have,” Shakespeare said. “I shall simply wait for you to return, idiotic wench. Then I shall follow you.”
“Aye, and wait all of the day for me to pick me herbs. Whatever pleases you, sir.”
Again the smile. It had become venal.
“A penny’s more the cost,” he said.
“You insult me, sir. Five shillings.”
“A penny.”
“A shilling.”
“Tuppence.”
“A sixpence.”
“A tuppence,” Shakespeare repeated. He mounted his steed. “Keep kicking a jade, wench, and you’ll have a dead horse at your feet.”
“A tuppence it is,” she said, hopping up behind him.
Her knowledge of the terrain was flawless, her senses keen, her skills swift. A large ground squirrel darted in front of their pathway. A moment later it lay dead, impaled to the ground, her dagger through its belly. She dismounted his horse, pulled out the knife and flung the bloodied carcass over her shoulder.
The animal would give her money and food for the week, she explained.
“I shall keep the meat for me meals, sir. The innards will be stuffed with rye and oats, boiled, sliced, then sold to the Fishhead to be eaten cold. The pelt and tail will be a hat, the spleen and liver will be roasted in an open pit and sold at the marketplace, the blood will be mixed with ale and sold to the apothecary as a remedy for virility problems. The brains, heart, lungs, and kidneys shall be minced and made into pies. The teeth shall be ground into powder and mixed with cinnamon and mint. When stirred with warm ale and a teaspoon of dragon water, tis good for the brain.”
“What about the eyes?” Shakespeare asked.
“Pickled in vinegar,” she answered. “When swallowed whole, they are also good for the brain.”
He thought about that along the way—a supper of pickled eyes.
The burg of Hemsdale was under the jurisdiction of Henton Hall. It was a poor town eroded by bitter cold and strong winds. The first houses that came into view were built from clay, colored red, white, or blue, and ceiled with straw, reeds, and mud. Little protection from the rain, Shakespeare thought.
As they reached the main thoroughfare, the hamlet awoke from its dormancy. Here were the townspeople busy with activity—wives and daughters buying fruits from the costermongers, or red, fresh beef from the butchers. Laborers and citizens staggered out of red-sashed taverns, children chased one another. There were the merchants shouting from the windows of their houses, “What de ye lack, today?” trying to ensnare buyers to purchase their wares. Aproned men pushing carts loaded with edibles sang out their selections—fresh cucumbers or melons, oatbread and barley cakes, and sweet marchpane and comfits. A lute player strummed out a tune as maidens giggled and danced. Shakespeare dismounted and led the whore and his horse through the tumult. Not as festive as Paul’s, but the noise did seem to liven up the weary little village.
He stopped to buy a pear. A big one. He bit into the skin and let the sweet juices dribble down his chin, then wiped them up using his sleeve. As he chewed, his thoughts turned back to Harry, until he was interrupted by a hoarse voice.
“Ye shall burn in hell lest ye repent for your wicked ways.”
Shakespeare turned around and saw hard, black eyes. A blasted Puritan as bleak in character as he was in dress. Serious and sour, glutted with scorn. His voice was raw, his features small and pinched. He held out an ungloved hand—red as if burnt by fire. He pointed a gnarled finger at