The Fool's Girl.

Celia Rees.

For Rosemary.

1.

*What country, friends, is this?'

London, 22nd April 1601.

VIOLETTA.

Have you seen a city under sack? Have you seen what happens there? Have you seen the blood, heard the screaming, smelt the smoke on the wind?

I stood on the battlements and watched them coming. Venetians and Uskok pirates, the sc.u.m of the sea, combined together to attack our fair city. I saw the red flash of the guns, the white smoke, felt walls shudder. I saw s.h.i.+ps rammed; blown to splinters. I saw tall galleys spew fire that spread over the decks in a blazing carpet, turning men into torches and sails into ragged flags of flame. The burning s.h.i.+ps ran on, setting fire to others until our fleet was nothing but smoking hulks set to spin in the powerful current like blackened walnut sh.e.l.ls.

Still they came on. Platforms built on towers above the prows of the leading galleys brought the invaders level with us on the battlements. We kept up a hail of stones and arrows but the big s.h.i.+ps came in a long line, each platform linked with its neighbour. You could run from one end of the fleet to the other. Those Venetians are clever. The s.h.i.+ps rammed against the walls, grounding themselves on the rocks, bringing their forces eye to eye with ours. Men leaped off the platforms and on to the battlements, letting rope ladders down to be caught by those below. Soon men were crawling up the walls in black swarms.

From the landward side, b.a.l.l.s of fire rained down on the city, destroying houses and churches. The roofs were obscured by rolling smoke; flames shot upwards and tiles fell in a dreadful scurrying clatter, m.u.f.fling the screams of those caught inside to burn alive.

The city's walls were breached. The gates lay open. Enemy forces poured in, driving the people up the Stradun. The wide central thoroughfare was already jammed with all those trying to escape the ring of trampling booted feet, the swing and slash of the sword blade. The crowds were forced into the main piazza, caught like fish pursed up in a net. They would find no sanctuary in the cathedral. The great west door lay in splinters. Vestments were strewn about, defiled and discarded. Pages of sacred texts blew around and stuck in the crooked streams of blood that were trickling down the steps to pool on the white marble pavement. Once the piazza was full, the killing began. The separate wails of grief, sobbing and pleading became one constant scream.

FESTE.

I took her. I dragged her from the battlements. She wanted to stay, to fight to the end, but her father the Duke ordered her away. He knew that there would be no mercy. He did not want to see his daughter raped in front of him until they put out his eyes. He sent his page, young Guido, with us, not wanting to see the same thing happen to him.

We went down into the cellars. From there I hoped to take one of the tunnels that led out to the ramparts, but from the direction of the walls came the rumble of rolling barrels. The vermin were already down there. Sappers, busy with gunpowder, getting ready to blast their way up into the tower.

I led them up into air thick with the smell of burning flesh and ash falling like snow. The fight had moved on, the streets were deserted, but they were not empty, if you get my meaning, and there was no way for me to s.h.i.+eld her. She's seen sights that no girl of her age should ever have to see. There's a madness takes men over. No one had been spared. Men cut down where they stood, women raped and left for dead, children and babies chopped and butchered. Only the animals were still roaming about, and the less said about that . . .

We couldn't get out of the city. We were trapped like rats in a granary. Ever seen terriers sent in to clear them? They kill until they are staggering, then they kill some more.

In the east, a woman's high keening stopped abruptly. In the west, the sky glowed with more than the sunset. The Duke's palace on fire. There were still shouts and screams, but they were becoming scattered and sounded distant. There was a lull while the Venetians and pirates got busy looting or broke open barrels in the inns and taverns, but the looting would finish when there was nothing left to steal, and then they would be out on the street again, this time drunk, and the slaughter would go on until there was nothing left to kill.

We went through the narrow twists of the streets and up crooked flights of steps slippery with blood. We went to find Marijita, but she was dead with all her birds about her. She had been weaving her own shroud.

VIOLETTA.

How did this come about? To understand that, I have to take you back to the very beginning . . .

2.

*So full of shapes is fancy'

Master William Shakespeare, poet, player and sometime mage, had been on his way home from the theatre after seeing a particularly poor performance of one of his plays. The crowd had been slow to settle, churlish and sullen, given to outbursts of insults, mewing and hissing, accompanied by a certain amount of peel and bottle throwing. And who could blame them, when those whom they had come to see were stiff-limbed and leaden-footed, late to arrive on stage and slow to leave it? The heroine needed a shave, and her male counterpart was more wooden than the twigs and branches of the *forest' he wandered. There was sickness in the company, some of the best players laid low, but that was really no excuse. Why did he bother to write at all, when any addle-pated actor thought he could prattle out the contents of his empty head?

Will had left before the end. He knew how that would be, the epilogue rushed to give way to a prolonged bout of energetic, over-exuberant jigging, whether the play warranted it or no. Even though the present production was a comedy, it would not benefit from a lot of antic prancing. The thought of it put him even more out of temper as he went past the sharp animal reek of the bear garden. Here the crowd roared at every deep snarl of fury and sharp yelp of agony. The animals were earning more applause than their human counterparts at the Globe.

He walked on, eyes down, picking his way over the t.u.r.d-studded ground, making for his lodgings, close by the Clink Prison. As he turned the corner hard by the church of St Mary Overie, a throng of people stopped his further progress.

A bearded man who looked like a Spaniard strummed a cittern and a blackamoor beat on a row of upturned buckets, but these two were not the focus of the crowd's attention. Every head was turned; every eye was on a small, thin man. He stood, stripped to the waist, his legs encased in black hose, his white visage a blank mask of concentration as his head wove this way and that, trying to balance a motley collection of objects on his forehead: a wooden pole, a painted box, a chair on top of that. His bobbing sideways motion had the crowd weaving with him, as if their sympathetic movement could strengthen his.

He gave a slight nod and the crowd gasped, sure that the whole lot would tumble, but it did not. The clown righted the swaying edifice and his a.s.sistant, dressed in the white baggy costume of a Commedia dell'arte zanni, threw a puppet high into the air. All eyes turned upwards as the puppet flew, seemed to hover for a moment then fell down, settling on the seat of the chair. The crowd clapped and roared their appreciation as the puppet's tiny head nodded to them and its hand seemed to stir in acknowledgement. The clown gave a violent toss of his own head and the whole lot went skyward, each object falling to the ground arranged neatly around him, the puppet still seated on his chair. The clown picked up the puppet, a black-clad replica of himself, and set it to bowing and waving and accepting the applause.

Will stayed to watch, as did the rest of the crowd, and others joined them. The clown had created a great s.p.a.ce out of nothing, a sc.r.a.p of paving where two roads met. Each successive trick seemed more dangerous, more outrageous, doomed to inevitable failure. That was what held them. They were all waiting for the moment when the clown would falter and the objects he was juggling or balancing would tumble about him. But they never did. Full-size chairs flew through the air like children's toys.

One act followed another. He wriggled out of locks and chains heavy enough to crush him. Fire did not scorch him. Swords and daggers left him without a scratch. He took the crowd with him like the tide pulled the river's flow. Will had long ago left watching what the clown was doing; he knew he would not fail in it. He was watching his face. Terror, fear, relief, humour, happiness and sadness rippled over his expressionless features like water over stone, running out to the crowd who mirrored each emotion, entirely unaware that they were doing so. Will knew that he was in the presence of a master, a great clown, perhaps the best he had ever seen. When the show was over and the crowd applauded, he joined in, throwing a coin into the hat the zanni was pa.s.sing. The clown held the puppet behind his back and they both bowed low, the clown turning to take in all of the circling crowd.

His audience began to disperse into the surrounding streets and alleys, but Will stayed behind.

*What is your name, master?' he asked.

The clown affected not to hear. He pulled a black tunic over his sweating body, his pale torso corded and knotted, his arms like twisted rope. He wiped his face with a rag, revealing a pale countenance almost as white as the paint that had covered it. Will watched as the man walked about collecting the chains, clubs and sticks and various bits he had used, throwing each one into the battered box that had been part of the balancing act. He could have been any age and no age. Will liked the look of him. A thin clown, a lean clown, a clown with no spare flesh on him, the kind Will admired, quite unlike that fat fool prancing about on the stage of the Globe. He was yesterday's clown.

The man picked up the puppet, removing the rudimentary arms and legs like a suit of clothes to reveal the central shaft of a folly stick. The head was hewn from a natural burl of wood, the contours carved into his own features, with a twisted mouth and a sharp, curving nose. s.h.i.+ny black stones gleamed from lids half closed, sly and knowing, beneath the swirl of a jester's cap.

*My name is Feste.' The clown cradled the folly stick to his chest, twisting its face away to avoid further scrutiny. He turned to welcome back his companion. *This is Violetta.'

The white-suited zanni had slipped away to use a nearby alley as a tiring room and returned as a maid, wearing a low-cut bodice under a soft blue gown. She shook out her dark hair as she came towards them. She wore it loose, with no covering cap. Around her neck hung a pendant charm of branching silver sprigs and strands of coral as delicate as a baby's fingers.

Will stepped forward, intending to introduce himself.

The clown held up his stick, as if in warning. *We know who you are, master,' he said.

*My compliments to you both,' Will replied. *You pleased the crowd. But performing is hard work. You must be hungry . . . thirsty. Would you accompany me to the Anchor? It is close by here. We could share a jug of wine and take some supper. It would be my treat.'

Violetta nodded and the clown shouldered the box. The take had been good, but an offer of food and wine bought by another was not to be pa.s.sed up. Will turned to make sure that they were following after him and led the way to the inn by the river. They were strangers, that much was clear, but more than that, there was a strangeness about them. A Fool who was no man's fool, and his boy who was really a girl. He'd felt the old p.r.i.c.king sensation running through him. He'd sensed a story here, and he was seldom wrong.

3.

*I am all the daughters of my father's house, and all the brothers, too'

VIOLETTA.

It began when my mother came to the sh.o.r.es of Illyria. I am named for her: Violetta, meaning little Viola. My mother arrived in my country as much a stranger as I am here. I remember the story from when I was very young. I remember it from when I was lying in my cradle, watching the s.h.i.+mmering light from the sea play like shoals of silver fish across the ceiling, while the charms hanging above me seemed to turn to the music and laughter twisting up the stairs from the great hall below.

In my mind, my mother became mixed with the heroines of other legends, the stories so woven together that I could not work out where their stories ended and hers began.

When I was a child of about four or five I would sit at my window, watching the s.h.i.+ps come and go from the harbour below a" long galleys with their oars stretched like insect legs; st.u.r.dy little carracks, the wind billowing their slanting sails a" and I would wonder: did my mother come on that kind of s.h.i.+p, or that? Sometimes I would mount the steep, worn steps to the Tower of the Eagles, pulling myself up by the thick rope looping between great iron rings set into the wall. I would look out from the battlements and my mind would take flight like the eagles that nested on the topmost turrets.

I would look down at the sheer cliffs, the white waves curling beneath, the tiny coves and lonely inlets with their crescents of pale grey beach, and I would wonder: where did she first come to sh.o.r.e?

I would see the great s.h.i.+p founder: sometimes with a splaying tangle of splintering oars, sometimes with a st.u.r.dy hull split asunder a" the crack of a tall mast, the rending of canvas, the wild flapping of fallen sails. I would see the cargo spill. Among the casks and barrels I saw bodies floating, arms outstretched, hands and faces livid in the blackness. My mother was among them, her eyes closed in her white face, her pale hands floating upwards, her dress billowing, her hair flowing about her, moving like the weed in the harbour. She hung there, suspended between brightness and darkness, until I was sure that she was dead. Then she pushed upwards, making for the s.h.i.+fting glimmer above her, her head breaking the surface like a sleek seal.

She bobbed there for a moment, looking about her, before breasting the tumbling waves and striking for sh.o.r.e. She was a strong swimmer, my mother. She rose from the water, emerging from the foam like Aphrodite; coming out of the waves like some mysterious mer-creature, stepping on to the sand like a lost princess, spared by the sea to pursue her destiny. Behind her, day had become night. The storm raged and between sky and water there was no margin, only inky blackness. Then a single flash of lightning forked from the firmament, st.i.tching heaven and earth together, and she stood illuminated by the sudden violent brightness. Although yellow was a colour that I never saw her wearing, she was wearing a yellow dress. When I told her this, she smiled and pulled me to her.

*Yes. That is how it was! A yellow dress, exactly. How could you know? You clever, clever child!'

This was her story. How she told it to me. She emerged from the water to find people standing on the sh.o.r.e, attracted by the storm or the chance of a wreck. Her appearance was so sudden, so miraculous, a splash of yellow against the blackness, that they looked behind her, to see if her feet printed the sand. Among them were sailors, lately washed up. Their number included the captain of the s.h.i.+p.

*What country, friends, is this?' she asked.

*This is Illyria, lady,' the captain replied.

She enquired about her brother, Sebastian, who had been travelling with her. He was last seen clinging to a spar, but there was no sign of him on that sh.o.r.e. The captain's words gave her hope, but his eyes denied it. The truth would be too much to endure.

The news took the last of her strength and she s.h.i.+vered. A man started forward to cover her with his sheepskin coat. She was taken to a cabin, a stone's cast from the beach. There was an upturned boat outside, spread with fisherman's nets. The walls of the cabin curved inwards, the beams keel-shaped, made from the timbers of wrecked s.h.i.+ps. In the middle of the room a large square grate contained huge driftwood logs crumbling to ash. Various pots and pans lay lodged in the embers. A toothless crone ladled fish soup as s.p.a.ce was made at the hearth.

My mother sat down to share a simple meal with them. She was grateful and courteous. She had charm and grace, a way of making people like her. She was the sort of person that people want to help.

She refused nothing. Although she knew that they were giving her the best of their meagre store, food likely being saved for a wedding or a feast day, she was careful not to proffer any reward. Hospitality was a sacred duty. A holy obligation. To offer money in exchange would be an insult. These were superst.i.tious people. They lived by the old ways, ancient and unwritten. She looked about and saw the gla.s.s disc, a milky white circle surrounding a blue iris and black pupil, that hung above the door to ward off the evil eye. In a little niche in the wall a candle burned before the s.h.i.+ning icon of the local saint. He was always shown holding the holy relic. It had been brought to these sh.o.r.es in a wreck, just like she had been. She did not know it yet, but that was why these people regarded her with such awe.

After she had eaten, she supped tiny cups of thick, sweet coffee and threw back thimbles of fiery spirits that tasted of bitter mountain herbs. She enquired as to the nature of the place. Who ruled here? The country was small but prosperous, governed by the Lord Orsin. Respect mixed with affection as the people told her about him: a kindness here, a generous gesture there. Although his word was law, he was fair and he kept the coast free from pirates and other marauders. From the way they spoke of him, she could tell that he was a benevolent ruler, good to his people, so she resolved to go to his court in the morning and offer him her service.

Once the meal was over, she began to prepare. She cut off her hair, stained her face with walnut juice and begged a suit of clothes salvaged from the wreck. For ease of travel and the sake of concealment, she had decided that it would be better to go to Lord Orsin's court disguised as a boy.

She went striding along the narrow coast road, a staff in hand and a bundle over her shoulder. The storm had gone. The sea was calm, only a faint swell bearing witness to the fury of the night before. The day was bright, warm with the promise of early summer. She sang as she walked, her voice strong and pure, and gathered flowers: white wayside lilies, asphodel, blue and purple fleur-de-lis.

Presently she turned a corner and saw a large bay before her. On a promontory, a town lay like a curled fist, strong stout walls circling the red-roofed buildings and the small harbour. She stood for a moment, taking in the town, and then started down the winding road to the Eastern Gate.

It was a still day, sound travelled far, and from his terrace in the Tower of the Winds Duke Orsin heard her singing. He loved music of all kinds and had rarely heard a song so hauntingly lyrical, a voice so sweet and high. He sent for the singer. His servants found her by the fountain, just inside the gate, and took her to the palace. Once in his presence, she bowed low and presented him with her flowers.

Within days she was strutting with the other young men in the Duke's service, dressed from head to toe in his livery, one side red, the other side blue, from her round cap to her pointed shoes. She wore the short doublet and long hose of a page in the Duke's service. What she lacked, hidden by a proud codpiece. What she had, bound close to her body with strips of cloth. She had given herself a new name a" Cesare a" and no one guessed her true ident.i.ty. A slender steel stiletto dagger dangled from her belt, elegant as a jewel.

She quickly became the Duke's favourite, going about the town on errands for him, and was soon so deep in his confidence that he entrusted her with a special task. He was sick with love for the Countess Olivia, but the lady would have none of him, so Cesare was sent to woo her. The Duke thought that the boy would make the perfect proxy lover, being prettily handsome, silver-tongued and full of wit but too young to prove any kind of rival. Or so Orsin reasoned. He did not consider that the Lady Olivia might have other ideas.

In her dusty pink palazzo, as grand as anything in Venice but without the ca.n.a.l, the Contessa presided over a household as unruly as the Duke's was ordered. Everyone there seemed infected with some kind of madness, from the Contessa's drunken kinsman and his foolish friend to her pompous, posturing steward. All except Feste, the Lady Olivia's Fool, who seemed to see through everything, including my mother's own disguise.

The courts.h.i.+p of Lady Olivia took place in the garden: a hidden, sunlit s.p.a.ce shaded by overhanging pine, studded with statuary, cooled by an ornamental fountain. As the two wandered there they spoke of love, and somewhere between the statues and the fountain the lady lost her heart. The garden faded in a golden haze and all she saw was this beautiful youth. She scarcely heard the honeyed words that he had rehea.r.s.ed. Instead she watched the movement of his mouth, the fullness of his lips, the line of his jaw, the curve of his cheek, the dark wing of hair falling over eyes the exact same shade as the flowers on the rosemary that she had plucked as they walked. He talked on, berating her for her heartlessness, and she smiled, all the while admiring the graceful sweep of his long neck, the hollow at the base of his throat, overwhelmed with such a strong desire to kiss the place where the delicate collarbones met that she had to turn away to hide her blushes. She cared not a fig for Orsin's suit. She trailed her fingers through the water, looking at her own reflection agitated by the fountain, her mind on ways of keeping this youth with her.

Cesare returned to the Duke and reported that the courts.h.i.+p had gone well.

*But by then I knew,' my mother would say to me. *The lady was mistook, and I, poor wretch, was in love with your father.'

It was a pretty pa.s.s, and my mother was at a loss to think how it might work out, until her brother wandered into town, saved from being drowned by one Antonio, a renowned pirate and enemy to the Duke. Brother and sister were like in looks, very like. The same dark hair, eyes the same shade of blue, the same set of the mouth and curve of the lip that the Lady Olivia so admired. At a distance they would have seemed identical, although Sebastian was slightly taller, broader built, with a peppering of stubble on jaw and chin that could never have belonged to his sister.

When the twins met, all became clear. It seemed all prayers were answered. Man was revealed as maid; the Duke could marry his page. The Countess was free to transfer her affection to the other twin, and Sebastian most happy to receive it.

The couples were joined in double celebration. It was a golden time. But as you well know, sir, few stories end at the happy ever after.

4.

*For the rain it raineth every day'

Violetta broke from her telling, eyes blinking, caught by the feeling of returning into light from darkness, or swimming up from deep immersion to the surface of her tale. Back in the present, watery grey light leaked in from the windows that gave out on to the river. Tankards clattered on tables, men's voices rumbled in conversation, tobacco smoke drifted under the low ceiling and the air was filled with the sour reek of sweat and beer.

Will smiled. *A tale well told.'

*Ach, I've heard it before.' A small rusty-haired man with a pointed beard spoke from a seat nearby. He had been listening to their conversation. *Filched from another story. The Italians call it Gl'Ingannati a" The Deceived. An apt t.i.tle for what's gone on here.' He gave a creaking, wheezing laugh.

*You have big ears, master,' Violetta glared at this man who dared to eavesdrop on her and then call her a liar. *I do not remember you being invited into our company.'

*What's it to you, anyway?' The clown's small black eyes fixed upon the red-haired man. *Are you saying she lies? Cannot life imitate art? Does not art imitate life? I can tell by your fingers that you are a writer, and by the fraying of your coat cuff not a very good one. Since you were listening, perhaps you could learn a thing. Like this one.' He pointed a long finger at Will.

*Who are you?' The eavesdropper scratched at his rusty beard and scowled at the clown.

*I am Feste. Either a character in a story, or flesh and blood.' He lunged forward, fast as a striking snake, his dagger under his antagonist's chin. *Well, which is it to be? If I do not exist, I cannot hurt you. So why do you start back? I'm warning you.' He pulled one of the man's ears out from the side of his head and brought the edge of the blade to the fleshy lobe. *Stop these from flapping, or you might lose one.'

Will moved to separate them. *True or not, what does it matter? It is a good tale, Riche. You have to admit that.'

*So good I've used it myself.' Riche got up to leave. *Perhaps word thieves are like magpies, often seen together. In that case, you have found the right company.'

*Who was that insulting fellow?' Violetta asked.

*Barnaby Riche.' Will watched as the little man shouldered his way to the door. *He is a disagreeable man, quick to quarrel. It's best not to rile him too much. He has been a soldier and is almost certainly a spy.' He turned to Violetta, his eyes keen and bright. *I am curious to know how such mayhem and destruction came about. That is not in Riche's story.'

Violetta glanced towards the window. Rain was splattering the gla.s.s and it was getting dark.

*We must go,' she said. *We've been away too long already.'