Page 14

“I fear, I am,” I say, raising my brow.

“How fortunate for us. So, then, what brings you to market?”

“I am collecting ingredients as a barrier against the pestilence, should it occur.” I lower my voice to a whisper. “I disdain any disease that does not demand at least a little fun in its acquiring.”

He laughs at my brazen joke, which pleases me.

“What a bouquet of posies you are in this stinking cesspit of a city,” he says. “You’re right to search for remedies before it is too late. One of our company’s apprentices came down with the sickness and does not look like he shall live to see the next Lord’s Day.”

“How horrible,” I say. “Can you tell me his symptoms so as to compare them to my husband’s?”

“His mother said he sweats profusely, has shat out half his weight, and his neck is swollen with lumps the size of unshelled-walnuts. He also cries that he wishes he were dead.”

“As I thought, my husband is merely sneezing due to the summer dust. But still I shall take my banishment to Shoreditch as a much-needed respite.” I allow my finger to swipe against the Poet’s thigh. “I am most curious to finish what we started under the lip of that stage.”

“As am I.” He winks as he coddles the hand I had stepped on. “It left a deep impression.”

At this very moment, the market’s pigman shoves himself into me as if he is accidentally falling. As he does, he grabs my backside and says, “By my little hairs, ’tis an ample arse you have, ye dirt-colored temptress.” The beast laughs and turns to leave.

“A pox upon thee, villain!” the Poet shouts, moving to strike the man.

“Leave it,” I say, stopping his advance, so the coward can escape. “I have fought against miscreants like him my entire life. Not to worry. I shall have my own revenge. See who buys his porkchops when rumors spread that his swine are infected with the pestilence.”

I feel myself where the pigman grabbed. There will be a bruise.

“Knaves like that are not worthy of the filth on your shoe, Mistress,” he says, bowing as if to show those around that I, a foreign woman, deserve their respect. “Will you dine with me, so we might know each other better?”

“I will,” I say, taking his arm.

He leads me to the Mermaid tavern, where we barely eat our venison pies but talk incessantly for over an hour. I regale him of my family’s history, of our journeys across continents, of the cruelty we faced due to my father being a trader from Byzantium and my mother coming from even more distant and unfamiliar lands. I explain how we finally arrived on the Poet’s island of milk-skinned men, where disapproving eyes are the color of air.

“Tush,” I say. “At least the sheer number of people in London allowed us to disappear sometimes. It’s a mote better than the small towns in Portugal where they threatened to burn us to death if we didn’t leave.”

He looks at me quizzically, as one inspects a bees’ nest or an unusual work of art, divining its construction. “Do you worship the gods of Byzantium?” he asks me.

“I worship no god,” I tell him. “Though my father was a Christian and attended the English church as was required by law, it didn’t help with our respectability. Alas, when your true nature is upon your skin, respectability is hard won amongst the ignorant. Upon my baptism, our neighbors spread rumors that the holy water sizzled upon my pate.”

“The stupidity of men knows no bounds.”

“My husband, Jamie, speaks well of you. I saw your first two plays about the old wars, and I liked them very much—or mostly, anyway.”

“Mostly?” he repeats with a smile. “You are the boldest woman I’ve ever met.”

“Does it repel you?”

“As I’ve said before, I like it well.”

He’s being honest with me. He likes my opinions. This intoxicates me more than the memory of his fingers inside me, or that look on his face when I playfully shoved him to the ground. My skin shivers.

“Go on, Mistress Williams,” he says. “What didn’t you like about my plays?”

“Well, in your plays about the Duke of Glouster and King Henry the Sixth, you vilify the maid who commanded the French army …”

“Joan of Pucelle?”

“Yes, she. The one who conferred with the spirits and wore armor like a man. You go as far as to call her a witch and a whore, accusing her of being ‘liberal and free’ with her body. Is that abhorrent to you? Is it cause enough to burn her at the stake? Are not certain individuals you know—men, even—liberal and free with their bodies? Are there not women you know who you wish were more liberal and free?”

His smile weakens, and shame flushes his cheeks. “I see the point you make. To be most honest, the choice of defaming the character of Joan was more business than anything.”