Shakespeare's Witch Read online

  Shakespeare’s Witch

  Pages of Darkness Book One

  Samantha Grosser

  Shakespeare’s Witch

  Copyright © 2016 Samantha Grosser

  All rights reserved.

  First published in 2019, Sydney, Australia

  Samantha Grosser asserts the right to be identified as the author of this Work. No part of this publication may be reproduced, copied, scanned, stored in a retrieval system, recorded, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the author.

  Cover design by Elena Karoumpali at L1graphics

  samgrosserbooks.com

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Also by Samantha Grosser

  Acknowledgments

  London

  1606

  Chapter One

  Imperfect Speakers

  Despite the dark it was still early, the long nights of winter stretching far into the day. New-lit torches throbbed in a chill breeze that swept off the river as the shops and stalls began to close their shutters for the night and housewives hurried to make last-minute purchases. A pieman passed them, the last two pastries in his basket sweetly scenting the air. Briefly, Sarah remembered it was suppertime, but she forgot it just as quickly as they followed Master Shakespeare and their mother through the busy Bankside streets. Once or twice she threw a glance behind as though a force in the dark were stalking her.

  ‘No one is following us,’ her brother murmured, pressing his hand closer on hers. ‘But I feel it too.’

  Past St Saviour’s Church, the lanes narrowed and pockets of liveliness arose from the taverns and alehouses. Men’s voices raised by drink skirled in concert with the high-pitched laughter of whores. But the way was well known to them all and they walked easily through the dark behind the single torch that Will carried: by the time the high white walls of the Globe loomed up in the darkness, she was breathless and warm.

  Inside the theatre, Will touched his torch to the others in their sconces, and the shadows bobbed and danced as the small party made their way across the broad yard and up onto the stage.

  ‘Here?’ Will asked Sarah’s mother.

  Elizabeth nodded. It was a good place to scry – quiet and dark and open to the sky.

  Sarah stepped away from the others to the edge of the stage and looked out into the empty darkness, allowing the activity behind her to ebb into the background of her thoughts. Above her the painted heavens marked the positions of the stars in hues of gold and blue, and beyond the roof that covered the stage, the night sky hovered velvet black, pinpricked with the first real stars of silver. Even in the shadows she knew every detail of the playhouse – the wide yard before the apron and the three tiers of wooden galleries that circled it, the sweep of the stage to the tiring house behind with its three floors of dressing rooms and storerooms, and at the top, the wardrobe where she worked with her brother to sew the actors’ costumes.

  She was aware of it all, a place of magic even in the silent evening dark, and she allowed her breathing to soften, opening herself up to the promise of the night. Then, when she sensed that the others were ready behind her, she turned around to face them. A single candle flickered lightly on the small table they had placed centre stage, and the shewstone lay on a linen cloth before it, its surface smooth and dark and inviting. Her brother gestured to the stool he had set before it, and though she was aware of the eyes of the others watching her as she took her seat, she took time to make herself comfortable, straightening her skirts, tucking back stray hair from her face. Her own gaze never left the surface of the stone. When, finally, she was settled, her mother and brother took their places just behind her and placed a hand on her shoulders: she could feel the strength of their connection as the shewstone beckoned, insistent, demanding her attention. The candle flitted and danced at the edges of her vision, and the blackness of the stone seemed to deepen. Behind it, across the table, she saw Will take his seat, nervous hands smoothing back the thinning hair and a sheen of sweat across the unnatural pallor of his forehead. She had never known him so unnerved.

  His gaze travelled to her mother. ‘Sarah will scry?’ he asked.

  ‘She has a greater gift than I,’ Elizabeth answered.

  He gave a quick nod and Sarah lifted a small smile of reassurance towards him. But as the shewstone began to shimmer its offer of foreknowledge, the weight of the hands on her shoulders began to seem a heavier burden. With a sudden rush of apprehension, she wished he hadn’t asked for this; she sensed already she would see only pain, and sometimes it was better not to know.

  ‘What would you like to ask of the spirits?’ she said. Her voice sounded strong and even, no trace of the tremor of her fear.

  ‘I want to know,’ he replied, and his voice was equally calm, ‘if the play I am writing now will have good fortune.’

  ‘The name of the play?’

  ‘Macbeth.’

  She nodded once to show she had understood, then closed her eyes, aware of her breath permeating all the angles of her body, connecting. A warm light passed through the hands of the others, suffusing her with its energy: she was conscious of the solid earth beneath her, the freedom of the air above. The stars pulsed in their places in the heavens and she surrendered herself to their call, imbuing her spirit with their mystery and power. For a moment she remained in this heightened state of being, open to the universe, before she let the shewstone draw her gently back and opened her eyes to focus in the blackness of its depths, secrets ready to be yielded in the world it would reveal.

  The once-black surface began to shift with colours that swept across it left to right – red turning crimson and darkening to purple before clearing into bright sky blue, like clouds blown away before the wind. She gazed into the clarity, patient and waiting, as images began to form and slowly coalesced into focus deep within the stone. At times she felt as though she could step right into it, and she was glad of the anchor of the hands on her shoulders that kept her moored and safe.

  ‘What do you see?’ Will asked.

  ‘Hush,’ her mother’s voice sounded softly beside her. ‘Hush now, and let the spirits show us what they will.’

  He fell silent again but she could sense his impatience across the table and the effort it took for him not to speak. Sarah followed the visions as they turned and slid and changed, mutable and ineffable as air, scenes falling away before her as her mind reached out to grasp them, a myriad of possible futures shifting with the fates. But she knew now to be patient and to let the visions rise and fall as they would: in time they would settle and reveal their truth. Waiting, her body seemed to grow light, without substance, as the scene in the stone hardened at last into a future she could see and hold on to. Then she watched in silent horror, unable to speak what she saw, fate playing out before her. Unconsciously, she lifted her hand to reach out to the images as though she might be able to change the future with a touch, and she stopped only when she felt Tom’s fingers tighten on the muscle of her shoulder, drawing her back, keeping her safe. The vision l
ingered, hovering in all its awful warning, and she closed her eyes for a breath in vain hope of unseeing what she’d seen. When she looked again, the stone was blank – a cold black piece of obsidian that told of nothing.

  ‘What did you see?’ Will asked again.

  She swallowed, her mouth dry, pulses hammering. She was acutely aware of the weight of Tom’s hand on her shoulder, and she lifted her own hand to grasp his fingers. Reluctantly, she raised her head to meet Will’s question. His eyes were dark and restless and deep with his fear as he fixed his gaze on her, desperate. What had he suspected she’d see? she wondered. How much was already known to him? She took a deep breath. ‘This play,’ she began, and her voice left her lips as a whisper, ‘deals with sorcery?’

  He nodded. Tom’s fingers tightened around hers and she was grateful for his touch.

  ‘And what else?’

  ‘There are … witches,’ he offered.

  ‘The play has conjured evil spirits,’ she said. ‘These are what haunt your dreams. Your words have opened doors to them.’

  ‘What must I do?’

  ‘Close them.’

  ‘And the play? Can I still use the play?’

  She shook her head. ‘You cannot,’ she whispered.

  ‘What will happen?’ he demanded. ‘What did you see?’

  She could not tell him, images too dark to speak of, her innards hollowed out.

  ‘What if I rewrite it?’

  ‘I cannot give you the answer you seek,’ she said.

  He leaned across the table and placed an ink-stained hand on her wrist. His fingers felt like ice and she had to fight the instinct to drag her arm away from his touch. ‘It’s good, Sarah,’ he breathed. ‘The play is good, as good as anything I’ve written.’

  ‘It will bring only evil,’ she told him. ‘Nothing good will come of it.’

  He snatched his hand away from her and stood abruptly, then paced the stage, once more every inch the dramatist. ‘It is only dreams, after all,’ he muttered. ‘Only dreams.’ He moved downstage and stood looking out as though playing to an imaginary audience, before he turned back towards her and Sarah lifted her eyes to look at him once again. He looked beaten, weary. ‘But they are dreams unlike any others I’ve ever known,’ he said. ‘Some nights I dare not even sleep.’

  ‘You must close the doors,’ she repeated.

  He gave her a small smile. ‘It is my work. It’s what I am. I cannot let it go.’

  She swallowed and dropped her eyes to the table. The shewstone had never revealed such images before, and for the first time in her life her gift seemed more of a curse.

  She did not return his smile. ‘Then I can help you no more,’ she said.

  He took a deep breath and nodded. ‘I thank you. All of you,’ he said. Then with a bow he turned and was gone, swallowed into the darkness of the playhouse, the candle flame lifting and falling with the sudden draft from the opening door.

  ‘What did you see?’ Tom demanded, turning her by her shoulder to face him and squatting down before her, grasping her hands, peering up into her face. ‘What did you see?’

  She shook her head, still full of the images.

  ‘Tell me.’ He squeezed her hands harder, as though he could force the words out of her.

  ‘I cannot,’ she whispered. ‘I dare not.’

  ‘You must tell us.’ He lifted a hand to brush her cheek, and reluctantly she raised her eyes to meet his. They were dark and ardent and she hadn’t the will to refuse him. But the words were hard to utter: once spoken they gained new power – a life and force of their own.

  ‘I saw death,’ she breathed, ‘and madness and pain and imprisonment …’

  ‘Whose death?’ Tom asked. But his question was more gentle this time and she heard the doubt in his voice.

  ‘Ours,’ she replied, holding his gaze with hers. ‘Your death and mine.’

  He let go of her hands as though they had burned him and stood up, taking two steps away, turning his back towards her and breathing hard.

  ‘We must go,’ their mother said in the silence. ‘Before your father misses us.’

  Sarah rose without another word and went to her brother, sliding her arm around his waist, drawing him close. ‘It is only one future,’ she murmured, but the words were empty and she believed them not. ‘There are many that are possible.’

  ‘When has the stone ever lied?’ he returned with a wry smile. ‘Can you tell me?’

  ‘We should go,’ she said. There was no answer to his question, no salve for the blow, and their father’s wrath was something to avoid.

  He nodded and put his arm about her shoulders and placed a kiss against her head. Then they turned once more to their mother, carried the table and stools back to their place, and together left the stage.

  Chapter Two

  All Hail Macbeth

  The first day of rehearsal and she walked to the playhouse reluctantly, with none of the excitement that she usually felt, just this heavy weight of foreboding and a chill inside she couldn’t shake despite the spells of protection they had woven. On her way through Borough Market she dawdled, hoping to distract herself with the earthy pungency of fish and livestock, and the shouts of the traders who called out as she passed, but it did nothing to help. Now she waited, unnoticed at the side of the stage, observing the ragged circle of players as they prepared to begin the first read-through of the play. Will Shakespeare had not yet arrived and the atmosphere was excited and charged. There was much laughter and pulling of legs. Only Richard Burbage seemed indifferent, but she suspected the nonchalance was merely an act – he felt himself too venerable to indulge in such frivolity, above such things, though she knew once rehearsals began he would forget the posture and give his all to the play. He was the leader amongst them, the actor each one of them aspired to be. There was not one man in the Company who was not in awe of his talent.

  Except perhaps for Nick Tooley, she mused, who fancied himself as Burbage’s successor, leading-man-to-be. Certainly he was talented: hungry and intense, he brought a charge to the stage Sarah found hard to look away from. Apprentice, boy actor, hired man and recently made a sharer in the Company, he was not without ambition and he had come a long way from low beginnings. She watched him laughing with his apprentice, the boy actor John Upton, who hung upon his master’s every word. Then, dragging her gaze away from Nick, she passed it over the other men in the circle: John Heminges, Henry Condell, William Sly, Robert Armin. Along with Burbage they were the stalwarts of the Company, and the major roles would go to them. Fine actors all. The smaller parts would be given out amongst the hired men and apprentices, and the women’s roles to the boy actors. Her brother, Tom, as Company wardrobe-keeper, might also act a line or two. She caught his eye and he smiled, and in the excitement of it all she forgot to be afraid, smiling at him in return.

  Then Will arrived and the work began.

  ‘So tell us, Will. What is the play?’ Burbage asked.

  Surprisingly, Will hesitated, casting a glance towards Sarah before he answered. He was still pale, she thought, and the dark circles beneath his eyes spoke of nights disturbed. He was still dreaming then, the spirits still haunting his sleep.

  ‘It’s a Scottish play, based on Holinshed. The murder of a king, ambition’s undoing of a man …’

  ‘Yet it opens with … witches?’ Burbage was skimming through his pages. He seemed unimpressed.

  Again Will flicked a look towards Sarah, who tilted her head in a half-shrug. Tom registered the exchange from his place in the circle and shot her a questioning look. She met the question blankly – she knew no more than he.

  ‘The witches set events in motion,’ Will answered in a louder voice this time, a deliberate attempt at confidence. ‘They predict Macbeth’s rise to kingship. All that follows rests on his belief it’s his fate to be king.’

  There was silence in the circle but she could not have said what prompted the unease: there had been witches on the London
stage before without this same tense disquiet. She lifted her gaze briefly to her brother, who met the look with clear, grave eyes. He felt it too, then – the stirring of a darkness, malign forces at work beyond their ability to see.

  ‘What?’ Will demanded. ‘No one turned a hair at Marlowe’s Faustus …’ Which wasn’t true, Sarah knew: she’d heard tales that many believed real daemons had been summoned, the actors spending nights in prayer and fasting. ‘And yet,’ Will continued, ‘you are afraid of playing witches? This is the theatre, and we are actors. Are you men?’

  There was a general shaking of heads and murmuring of dissent. He had appealed to their pride – no man likes to be accused of being afraid.

  ‘We’re not afraid, Will.’ Nick spoke for all of them. ‘Just wary. The King may object to witches on his stage. Especially Scottish ones.’

  ‘The King will not object. The Master of the Revels has already approved it.’ Will was no longer nervous, buoyed up by his pride in his art and the need to persuade the others. Or perhaps it was himself he needed to convince. ‘The witches are as evil as the King could wish,’ he said. ‘They wreak only havoc and harm. Those who practise witchcraft will gain no supporters from this play.’

  ‘Then tell us our parts,’ Burbage said. ‘And let us read.’

  And so the first rehearsal began.