To market with my wife, for naught but to receive the bows of gentlemen and to return them, for though Jem walked behind to carry our purchases, they were in truth small. The days when my wife must market and carry her own basket are long past. And the evenings when I sat at my table above the inn and shared my bread and cheese and candles with the rats have vanished too, like the spirits of the air.
These days the traders call on us, not we on them. But my wife saw a fine brace of quails for Jem to carry, a dozen snipes and a hare, of which I am most fond. These wild meats are all we need that are not of our fields or from our tenants, except for venison that my Lord Sheriff makes me a gift of when he goes hunting, or boar from the squire.
A small boy looked wistfully at the hot chestnuts, so I gave the seller tuppence for the boy to have his fill, and did not know till afterwards, till I felt the tears cold upon my cheeks, that I thought of my lost son, and how Hamnet ate those chestnuts each time we visited the market.
Back here, to the warmth of my chamber fire, and to my book. In truth, even if the days grow short, there be not enough of interest to fill them.
Deeds of the past give more delight:
Their brightness doth make even winter bright.
And tears, although they cleave the soul,
Are yet the salt to make a memory whole.
I see my father as clearly now as if he were not dead these fourteen years. I hear his voice long decades past as he did bid me forget Judyth and find myself an heiress to save our family from disgrace and homelessness and death.
I wrote again that night. Words were the only sword to cut the anguish from my heart, and place it upon the paper. Words, words, words.
At last, exhausted, I copied out my scribbles in a fair hand:
Doubt that the earth doth move,
Doubt that the stars are fire,
Doubt truth to be a liar,
But never doubt I love.
I met her beneath the beech tree the next day, on the twelfth heartbeat of the great church clock. We kissed, as we had kissed each time before. I have supped with princes, ay, and a queen too, but no wine was as sweet as Judyth’s kisses then.
I pulled the poem from my sleeve.
She read the words, then looked at me. ‘Oh, William.’
All my fine words fled, like a hare that hears the hounds. My soul stood naked as a newborn babe. I said, ‘We cannot marry.’
She stepped back. ‘William! Do you mean to jilt me?’
‘’Tis no jilting to break what never was.’
‘And yet you say you love me?’
Should I have said that I did not? It would have been kinder if I had, but I did not know that then.
I said, ‘My father has lost all, will lose our house come quarter-day. I have no home to give you. Nothing comes from nothing. Nothing ever will. I will be a glover’s apprentice to a master who makes no gloves, nor has a hall in which to make them.’
She looked into my eyes and took my hand. I feared mine was trembling, but hers did not. ‘You will make your own way, William. As a blacksmith forges iron, you will forge greatness with the fire of your will.’
‘How? What can such a wretch as I do?’
For I had no other trade; nor could I enter one without the price to pay to be apprenticed, or the higher price still to join a merchant’s guild.
‘Truly, your brilliance dims the sun! To write the words you do . . .’
‘Would your brother take me as a secretary?’ I tried to smile. ‘You know I write a fair hand.’
She bit her lip, suddenly prosaic. ‘Arnold has a man to do that work, nor do I think he would employ thee, even for love of me.’
‘Then what must I do? We cannot live on air, as the birds do.’
She said simply, ‘You can be a schoolmaster.’
Why had I never thought of that? Admittedly, I had little Latin and less Greek, but I knew my classics, could figure and write dancing couplets. The books I had borrowed from my schoolmaster in the last six years had taught me well. A school usher could not support a wife like Judyth, much less help my family, but a schoolmaster in a good school or household might.
‘How does one become a schoolmaster?’
I was embarrassed to ask her. But she had seen more of the world in her three years away than ever I had, as well as hearing the merchants’ tales at her father’s and brother’s tables.
‘Why, advertise as tutor to a family, and then in two years, or even three, apply to a school that will make you an usher, and then, seeing your quality, will make you master with your own house, where you will need a wife.’
‘You would marry a schoolmaster?’
She nodded. ‘I would gladly be a teacher’s wife, if that teacher was you.’ She stepped back, though her fingers were still laced with mine. ‘I will wait for you,’ she said softly, ‘for as many years as you need to carve your place in the world. I would wait till a single drop of water carved your name upon a rock, and then my name, in a heart to bind us both. You will be a poet, William, not just a schoolmaster. You are greater than this small town. This tragedy has been sent, perhaps, to make you leave it, so you may rise, uncramped and unconfined. Men yet unborn will read your words. And they will read my name and say, “She was his wife.”’ She kissed me gently then. That one soft kiss moved me more than when our tongues had clashed like cymbals.
I did not move. If I had moved, I would have clasped her to me until the Avon had washed the last tear of rain from this land.
She slipped away, beyond the leaves, and still I stood, feeling her touch upon my fingers. Even now, I feel her fingers on this gnarled hand with which I write.
For she was right, this quiet girl. I, Will Shakespeare, could forge a future for himself, as had my ancestor who had given us our name, shaking his spear for some great lord. I might even make my name and fortune as a poet. But not by quarter-day.
By next quarter-day I could be in the employ of a merchant’s household, tutoring his sons who needed no more Latin than I, a glover’s son, had to impart. But this I knew too: that wage would not keep my family from starvation, much less keep my father’s house and dignity, nor would I be paid it till I had worked a full year’s quarter.
What choices do wretches such as I have, crawling between earth and heaven? My Judyth, or my family? My love, or duty?
I knew, even then, which I had to choose.
Dinner: a loin of pork with apple sauce; quail, roasted, with egg sauce; a coney pie; oxtail with mustard; cheese cakes; rhubarb fool; butter; biscuits with our crest; and raisins of the sun.
Bowels and waters: steady, like my life, were it not that I have bitter memory by day and dreams that bite at night.