Winter’s Tale

by Connie Willis

“Is the will here?” he said. “I need …”

“Thou hast no need of wills,” I said, putting my hand upon his poor hot brow. “You have but a fever, husband. You should not have stayed so late last eve with Master Drayton.”

“A fever?” he said. “Aye, it must be so. It was raining when I rode home, and now my head is like to split in twain.”

“I have sent to John for medicine. It will be here soon.”

“John?” he said, alarmed, half rising in the bed. “I had forgot Old John. I must needs bequeath the old man something. When he came to London—”

“I spoke of John Hall, thy son-in-law,” I said. “He will bring you somewhat for thy fever.”

“I must leave Old John something in my will, that he’ll keep silence.”

“Old John will not betray you,” I said. He hath been silent, lo, these twelve winters, buried in Trinity Church, no danger to anyone. “Hush, thee, and rest awhile.”

“I would leave him something of gaud and glitter. The gilt-and-silver bowl I sent thee from London. Do you remember it?”

“Yea, I remember it,” I said.

The bowl had come at midday as I was making the second-best bed. I had already made the best bed for the guests, if any came with him, airing the hangings and putting on a new featherbed, and was going into my room to see to the second-best bed when my daughter Judith called up the stairs that a rider had come. I thought that it was he and left the bed unturned and forgot. Ere I remembered it, it was late afternoon, all the preparations made and we in our new clothes.

“I should have stuffed a new featherbed,” I said, laying the coverlid upon the press. “This one is flattened out and full of dust.”

“You will spoil your new gown, Mother,” Judith said, standing well away. “What matters if the bed be turned? He’ll notice not the beds, so glad he’ll be to see his family.”

“Will he be glad?” Susanna said. “He waited long enough for this homecoming, if it be that. What does he want, I wonder.” She took the sheets and folded them. Elizabeth climbed onto the bed to fetch a pillow and brought it me, though it was twice her size.

“To see his daughters, perhaps, or his grandaughter, and make his peace with all of us,” Judith said. She took the pillow from Elizabeth gingerly and brushed her skirts when she had laid it down. “It will be dark soon.”

“ ’Tis light enough for us to make a bed,” I said, reaching my hands to lift it up. “Come, help me turn the featherbed, daughters.” Susanna took one side, Judith the other, all unwillingly.

“I’ll turn it,” Elizabeth said, squeezing herself next the wall at the foot, all eagerness to help and like to have her little fingers crushed.

“Wilt thou go out and see if they are coming, granddaughter?” I said. Elizabeth clambered over the bed, kirtle and long hair flying.

“Put on thy cloak, Bess,” Susanna cried after her.

“Aye, Mother.”

“This room was ever dark,” Judith said. “I know not why you took it for your own, Mother. The window is high and small, and the narrow door shuts out the light. Father may be ill pleased at such a narrow bed.”

It were well if he were, I thought. It were well if he found it dark and cramped and would sleep elsewhere. “Now,” I said, and we three heaved the featherbed up and over the foot of the bedstead. Dust and feathers flew about, filling the room.

“Oh, look at my doublet,” Judith said, brushing at the ruffles on her bosom. “Now we shall have to sweep again. Can you not get the serving boy to do this?”

“He is laying the fires,” I said, pulling at the underside.

“Well, the cook then.”

“She is cooking. Come, one more turn and we’ll be done with it.”

“Dost thou hear something?” she said, shaking out her skirts. She went out. “Have they come, Bess?” she called.

I waited, listening for the sound of horses’ hooves, but I heard naught.

Susanna stood still at the side of the bed, holding the linen sheet. “What think thee of this visitation, Mother? Thou hast said naught of it since word arrived of his coming.”

What could I answer her? That I feared this day as I had feared no other? The day the message had come, I’d taken it from Susanna’s hand and tried to draw its meaning out, though she had read it out already and I had never learnt to read. “To my wife,” it had read. “I will arrive in Stratford on the twelfth day of December.” I had kept the message by me from that day to this, trying to see the meaning of it, but I could not cipher its meaning. To my wife, I will arrive in Stratford on the twelfth day of December. To my wife.

“I have had much to do,” I said. I gave the featherbed a mighty pull and brought it flat across the bed. “New rushes to be laid within the hall, the baking to be done, the beds to make.”

“He came not to his parents’ funeral, nor Hamnet’s, nor to my wedding. Why comes he now?”

I smoothed the featherbed, pressing the corners so that they lay neat and smooth.

“If the house be too full of guests, you can come to us at the croft, Mother,” Susanna said. She folded out the sheet and held it to me. “Or if he … you ever have a home with us.”

“ ’Twas but a passing townsman,” Judith said, coming back into the room. “Think you he will bring friends with him from London?”

“His message said he would arrive today,” Susanna said, and bellied out the sheet, sweet with lavender, over the bed. “Naught else. Nor who should accompany him or why he comes or whether he will stay.”

“Come, he will stay,” Judith said, coming to fold the sheet against the side. “I hope his friends are young and handsome.”

There was a creak upon the stairs. We stopped, stooped over the bed.

“Bess?” Susanna inquired.

“Nay, my little grandniece stands outside all uncovered,” Joan said, and came, creaking, into the room. She wore a yellow ruff so high it seem’d to throttle her. It was the ruff that creak’d, or mayhap her leather farthingale. “I told her she will catch the sweating fever. I bade her put her on a heavier cloak, but she heeded me not.”

“Hath it begun to snow, sister-in-law?” I said.

“Nay, but it looks to ere long.” She sat upon the bed. “Are you not dressed, and my brother nearly here?” She spread her overskirts on either side that we might see her satin petticoat. “You look a common country wife.”

“I am a common country wife,” I said. “Good sister, we must make the bed.”

She stood up, the ruff creaking as if it were a signboard on a tavern. “A cold welcome for your husband,” she said, “the beds unmade, the children unattended, and you in rough, low broadcloth.” She sat down on the coverlid on the press. “A winter’s welcome.”

I stuffed the pillows into their cases with something force. “Where is your husband, madam?” I said, and putting the pillows to the bed, boxed them a blow or two to make them plump.

“Home with the ague,” she said, turning to look at Susanna, her ruff making a fearsome sound. “And where is yours?”

“Attending to a patient in Shottery,” Susanna said, still sweetly. “He will be here anon.”

“Why wear you that unbecoming blue, Susanna?” Joan said. “And Judith, your collar is so small it scarcely shows.”

“At least ’tis silent,” Judith said.

“He will not know you, Judith, so sharp-tongued have you become. You were a sweet babe when he left. He’ll know not you either, Good Sister Anne, so pale and old you look. He’ll not look so, I wot. But then, he’s not as old as you.”

“No, nor so busy,” I said. I took the quilt from off the bed-rail and laid it on the bed.

“I remember me when he was gone to London, Anne. You said you would not e’er see him again. What say you now?”

“He is not here, and dusk is fast upon us,” Susanna said. “I say he will not come.”

“I wonder what my brother will think of the impertinent daughters he hath raised,” Joan said.

“He raised us not,” Susanna said hotly, and on the same breath Judith cried out, “At least we do not trick ourselves out like—”

“Let us not quarrel,” I said, putting myself between them and their aunt. “We all are tired and vexed with worry that it is so late. Good Sister Joan, I had forgot to tell you. A gift hath come from him this very day. A gilt-and-silver bowl. ’Tis on the table in the hall.”

“Gilt?” Joan said.

“Aye, and silver. A broad bowl for the punch. I will with thee to see it.”

“Let us go down, then,” she said, rising from the chest with a great sound, like a gallows in a wind. I picked the coverlid up.

“They’ve come!” Elizabeth shouted. She burst into the room, the hood of her cloak flung back from her hair and her cheeks as red as apples. “Four of them! On horses!”

Joan pressed her hands to her bosom momently, then adjusted her ruff. “What does he look like, Bess?” she asked the little girl. “Doth he be very changed?”

Elizabeth gave her an impatient glance. “I never saw him ere this. I know not even which one he is.”

“Four of them?” Judith said. “Be the others young?”

“I told thee,” Elizabeth said, stamping her little foot. “I know not which is which.” She tugged at her mother’s sleeve. “Come!”

Susanna plucked a feather from my cap. “Mother … ?” she said.

I stood, the coverlid still held against me like a shield. “The bed’s not yet made,” I said.

“Marry, I’ll not leave my brother ungreeted,” Joan said. She gathered her skirts. “I’ll go down alone.”

“No!” I said. I lay the coverlid over the end of the bedstead. “We must all go together,” I seized Elizabeth’s hand and let her run me down the stairs ahead of them, that Joan might not reach the door before me.

•    •    •

“Now I remember me,” he said. “I left the bowl to Judith. What was bequeath’d to Joan?”

“Thy clothes,” I said smilingly. “You said ’twould keep her silent as she walked.”

“Ay, she is possessed of strange and several noises of roaring, shrieking, howling, jingling chains.…” He took my hand. His own was dry and rough as his night smock, and hot as fire. “Silent. She must keep silent. I should have left her something more.”

“The will bequeaths her twenty pounds a year and the house on Henley Street. You have no need of purchasing her silence. She knows naught.”

“Aye, but what if she, seeing my cold corpse, should on a sudden realize?”

“What talk is this of corpses?” I said, pulling my hand vexatiously away. I pulled the sheet to cover him. “You had too merry a meeting with thy friends, and now a little fever. You’ll soon be well again.”

“I was sick when I came,” he said. “How long ago it seems. Three years. I was sick, but you made me well again. I am so cold. Is’t winter?”

I wished for John to come. “ ’Tis April. It is the fever makes thee cold.”

“ ’Twas winter when I came, do you remember? A cold day.”

“Aye, a cold day.”

He had sat still on his horse. The others had dismounted, the oldest and broadest of them doubled, his hands to his knees, as though to catch his breath, the younger ones rubbing their hands against the cold. A white dog ran about their legs, foolishly barking. The young men had sharp beards and sharper faces, though their clothes bespoke them gentlemen. The one who was the master of the dog, if he could be called so, had on a collar twice wider than Joan’s, the other a brown cap with russet feathers stolen from a barnyard cock.

“I should not have plucked the feather from your cap, Mother,” Susanna whispered. “It is the fashion.”

“Oh, look,” Joan said, squeezing through the door. “He hath not changed a bit!”

“Which one is my grandfather?” Elizabeth said, her little hand clasped to mine.

They turned to look at us, the feathered one with a face canny as a fox’s, the collared one with a gawking gaze. The bent man stood with a groan that made the dog run at him. His doublet was quilted and puffed as to make him look twice as broad as his own girth. “Come, come, Will,” he said, turning to look at him still on his horse, “we’ve come to the wrong house. These ladies are too young and fair to be thy family.”

Joan laughed, a screeching sound like the cackle of a hen.

“Is he the one on the horse?” Elizabeth said, squeezing my numbed hand and jumping up and down.

“You did not tell me that he was so well-favored, Mother,” Judith said in my ear.

He handed down a metal chest behind him. The round man gave it to the feathered one and put a hand up to help him dismount. He came down off the horse oddly, grasping the quilted shoulder with one hand, the horse’s neck with the other, and heaving himself over and down on his left leg. He stepped forward, stiff-gaited, watching us.

“See how he limps!” Joan cried.

I could not feel the wind, e’en though it bellied his short cloak and Elizabeth’s hair. “Which one is my grandfather?” she said, fairly dancing in her impatience.

I would have made her answer, but I could not speak nor move. I only stood, quiet as a statue, and looked at him. He looked older even than I, the hair half-gone on the crown of his head. I had not thought him to look so old. His face was seamed with lines that gave it a sadness of demeanor, as if he had endured many November’s blasts. A winter’s face, sad and tired but not unkind, and that I had not thought it to be either.

The round-bellied gentleman turned to us and smiled. “Come, ladies, well met,” he said with a merry, booming voice that conquered the wind. “I was long upon the road from London and thought not to find such fair ladies at the end of it. My name is Michael Drayton. And these two gentlemen are Gadshill”—he pointed at the one with the ruff, then at the fox—“and Bardolph. Two actors they, and I a poet and lover of fair ladies.” His voice and manner were merry, but he looked troubledly from Joan to me and back again. “Come, tell me your names and which of you his wife and which his daughters, that I speak not amiss.”

“Come, Mother, speak and bid them welcome,” Judith whispered, and nudged at my elbow, but still I could not speak nor move nor breathe.

He moved not either, though Master Drayton looked at him. I could not read his face. Was he dismayed, or vexed, or only weary?

“If you’ll not greet him, I shall,” Joan whispered, bending her head to me with a snapping sound. She stretched her arms toward them. “Welcome—”

I stepped down off the porch. “Husband, I bid thee welcome,” I said, and kissed him on his lined cheek. “I could not speak at first, my husband, so struck was I to see thee after such an absence.” I took his arm and turned to Master Drayton. “I bid thee welcome, too, and thee, and thee,” I said, nodding to the young men. The ruffed one wore now a silly grin, though the one with the feathers looked foxy still. “ ’Tis a poor country welcome we have to give, but we’ve warm fires and hot supper and soft beds.”

“Aye, and pretty maids,” Drayton said. He took my hand and kissed it in the French fashion. “I think that I will stay the winter long.”

I smiled at him. “Come then, we’ll out of the cold,” I said.

“How looks he, Mother?” Susanna whispered to me as I passed. “Find you him very changed?”

“Aye, very changed,” I said.

“I have bequeathed naught to Drayton,” he said. “I should have done.”

“There is no need,” I said, laying a cool cloth on his brow. “He is thy friend.”

“I would have left him some token of my friendship. And thee some token of my love. You know why I could not bequeath the property to you.” He took hold of my hand with his own burning one. “If it were found out after my death, I would not have men say I bought your silence.”

“I have my widow’s portion, and Susanna and John will care for me,” I said, loosing his hand to dip the cloth in the bowl again and wring it. “She is a good daughter.”

“Aye, a good daughter, though she loved me not at first. Nor did thee.”

“That is not true,” I said.

“Come, Mistress Anne, when did you love me?” he said. I laid the cloth across his brow. He closed his eyes and sighed, and seemed to sleep.

“The very instant that I saw you,” I said.

We made a slow progress into the house, he leaning on me as we stepp’d over the threshold and into the hall. “My leg grows stiff when I have ridden awhile,” he said. “I need but to stand by the fire a little.”

Joan crowded close behind, her farthingale filling the door so that the others could not follow till she was through. Master Drayton followed upon her skirts, telling Judith and Susanna in a loud and merry voice of what had passed upon the road from London. “As we came across the bridge, four rogues in buckram thrust at me.” Drayton gestured bravely. Elizabeth stared at him, her eyes round.

The young men, Fox and Frill, entered the hall, bearing bags and the metal chest. They stopped inside the door to hear the tale that Drayton told. Frill dropped his sacks with a thump upon the floor. The Fox set the casket beside it.

“These four began to give me ground, but I followed me close.”

“Husband,” I said under cover of his windy voice, “thou must needs compliment thy sister Joan Hart on her new ruff. She is most proud of it.” He gazed at me, and still I could not decipher his look. “Thy daughters, too, have new finery for this occasion. Susanna hath a blue—”

“Surely a man knows his own daughters,” Joan said ere I could finish speaking, “though he hath not had a chance to greet them. Thy wife would keep thee all to herself.”

“Good Sister Joan,” he said. He bowed to her. “I would have greeted thee outside, but I knew thee not.”

Joan said. “Thou did’st not know me?” Her voice was sharp, and I looked anxiously at her, but could see naught in her face but peevishness. The Fox turned to look, too.

“I knew you not for that you seem’d so young.”

“Liar,” the Fox said, turning back round to Drayton. “Those four were not knaves at all, but beggars. They asked for alms.”

“Ah, but it makes a good tale,” Drayton said.

“I knew you not. The years have been far kinder to you than to me, Sister,” he said.

“ ’Tis not true,” Joan said, tossing her head. Her ruff groaned. “You look the same as on that day you left for London. Thy wife said on that day she’d not see her husband again. What say you now, Anne?” She smiled with spite at me.

“Thy gown is a most rare fashion, Sister,” he said.

“Is’t?” she said, spreading her skirts with her hands. “I thought it meet to dress in the fashion for your homecoming, brother.” She gazed at my plain gown. “Though thy wife did not. Girls!” she called in a shrill voice that overmastered Drayton’s. “Come meet thy father.”

I had not had the opportunity to speak and say, “Susanna’s gown hath a blue stomacher.” They came forward, Bess holding to Judith’s hand, and I saw with dismay that Judith’s frontlet skirt was blue also.

“Husband,” I said, but he had stepped forward already, limping a little. Joan folded her hands across her doublet, waiting to see what he would say.

Judith stepped forward, holding Elizabeth’s hand. “I am thy daughter Judith, and this Susanna’s little daughter Bess.”

“And this must be Susanna,” he said. She nodded sharply. He stooped to take Bess’s hand. “Is thy true name Elizabeth?”

Bess looked up him. “Who are you?”

“Thy grandsire,” Judith said, laughing. “Did you not know it yet?”

“She could not know her grandfather,” Susanna said. “She was not born and I a child her age when you left us. Why have you come after all these years away, Father?”

“Susanna!” Joan said.

“I knew not how you looked, if you were fair,” he answered quietly, “if you were well and happy. I came to see if there was aught that I could do for you.”

“There’s somewhat you can do for me, Will,” Drayton said, clapping a hand to his shoulder. “Give me a cup of sack, man. I am half-froze and weary and was set upon by thieves. And hungry, too.”

“I’ll fetch it,” Judith said, smiling at the Frill. “ ’Tis in the kitchen, already warmed and mixed with sugar.”

“I’ll help thee,” the Frill said.

The Fox said, “Madam, where shall I put these bags and boxes?”

“In the bedchambers,” I said. “Husband, where would you have your chest?”

“Leave it,” he said. “I’ll bear it there myself.”

Judith brought in the sack in a ewer with a cloth round it and poured it, steaming, into the bowl.

“I smell sweet savors,” Drayton said, holding his cup out to her. “What’s in it?”

“Cinnamon,” Judith said, smiling the while at the Frill. “And sugar. And divers spices. Father, wilt thou drink a cup?”

He smiled sweetly at her. “I would put this in a safe place first.” He raised the chest and turned to me. “Good wife, where would you have me sleep?”

“What’s in the chest?” Elizabeth said.

“Infinite riches,” Drayton said, and drained his cup.

I led the way up the stairs to my bedchamber, he following behind, dragging his leg a little under the weight of the chest.

“Where would you have me put it, Wife?” he asked when we came into the room. “In the corner?” He set the chest down and leant against the wall, his hand upon his leg. “I am too old for such burdens.”

I stood against the door. He stood and looked at me, the lines in his unfamiliar face cut deep and sad.

“Where is my husband?” I said.

“Where is the will?” he said.

I had thought he slept and had stepped quietly to the door to see if John were come. “You must stop this talk of wills and assay to sleep,” I said, folding the sheets under the featherbed that he might not cast them off. The featherbed made a rustling sound.

He started up, then lay back down again. “I thought I had heard Joan.”

“Fear not,” I said. “She’ll not come. She is in mourning.”

He looked as though he knew not what I spoke of. I said, “Her husband died these ten days since.”

“Of the ague? Or overmuch noise?” he said, and smiled at me, and then his face grew sad, the lines deep-carved upon it. “She knew me not.”

“Nay, and ’twere well she did not.”

“Aye, well,” he said. “When they first came to me, I thought not it would succeed. A one would say, I know him by his voice, or by his wit, or by his gait. But none said it. All believed, till at last so did I, and came to think I had a wife and daughters.”

“And so thou hast,” I said.

“Where is my husband?” I had asked, and he had not answered me at first, but let out his breath sighingly, as if he were relieved.

“I knew not that I had a wife and children till his father came to London to tell me that the boy had died,” he said.

“What have you done with my husband?”

He sat down heavily upon the bed. “I cannot long stand on my bad leg,” he said. “I killed him.”

“When?”

“Near twenty years ago.”

These twenty years since, he had lain in his grave. “How came you to kill him? Was it in a fight?”

“Nay, madam.” He rubbed his leg. “He was murdered.”

He answered me as plainly as I asked, more plainly, for my voice was so light and airy, I thought not it would carry the width of the room.

“How came he to be murdered?” I said.

“He had the misfortune to somewhat resemble me in countenance,” he said.

I sat down on the coverlid-drap’d press. Dead. I had never thought him dead.

“I fell into some trouble with the queen,” he said at last. “I had … done her a service now and then. It made me overbold. Thinking myself safe from the fire, I spoke in jest of things that had got other men burnt, and was arrested. I fled to friends, asking their help to transport me to France. They told me to lie secretly in London at a certain house until they had arranged passage for me, but when they came, they said that it was all accomplished. The man was dead, and I was free to take his name for mine own.”

His hand clutched the bedpost. “They had killed your husband, madam, at a little inn in Deptford and said I was the murdered man, not he. They testified that I had fought them over the reckoning of the bill, and they, in self-defense, had stabbed me. They told me this with pride, as of a job well-done.”

He stood, clasping the bedpost as it were a walking stick. “The queen’s anger would have passed. The murder never. Your husband has had his revenge on me, madam. He took my life as sure as I took his.”

I heard a sound from out the room. I waited, listening. I went, treading softly, into the gallery, but there was no one on the stairs, only the sound of laughter from below, and Drayton’s voice. I came back in the room.

“How came my husband to that inn?” I asked.

“They lured him thence with promise of a part to play. He being an actor, they had seen him on the stage and marked his likeness to me. They passed a whole day with him ere they killed him, drawing him out with wine and questions, what were his habits, who his friends, that I might better play the masquerade. He did not tell them that he had a wife and children.” He paced the narrow space between the bed and my skirts, and turned and paced again. “They even coaxed him to sign his name to a paper that I might copy it.”

“And your deception succeeded?”

“Yes. The lodgings where I had stayed that fortnight since were his. I had already fool’d the owner of the house and all the neighbors without intention.” There was another gust of laughter from below.

“What happened to your friends?”

“My friends,” he said bitterly. “They were acquitted. Walsingham found me not overgrateful for his help and Poley’s and has not seen me since. Skeres is in prison. Of Frizer, I know not. I heard that he was dead, but one cannot believe all that one hears.”

“And none knew you?”

“No.” He sat him down again. “I have been he this twenty years, and been not found out. Until now.” He smiled a little. “What would you have me do, madam, now you have caught me out? Leave you in peace as I found you? I could away tomorrow, called to London, and not return. Or publicly confess my crime. What would you? I will do what you command.”

“What’s all this?” Drayton’s voice bellowed from the stairs. “How now? The coverlet already off the bed? The host and his wife off to slumber so soon?” He lumbered into the room. “The dinner’s not yet served, though you two feast your eyes upon each other.” He laughed, and his very stomach shook with it, but when he turned his eyes to me, there was no laughter in them. “Good madam, I know we have dallied long upon the road, but tell me not ’tis time for bed so soon, supper missed, and all the trenchers cleared away. Tell me not that, or you shall break my heart.”

He had stood up when Drayton came in, taking the weight of his body on his bad leg as if it were some lesson in pain, but he looked not at Drayton.

“For God’s sake, come, man!” Drayton said, plucking at his arm. “I grow thinner by the minute!”

“Master Drayton, you are a most importunate guest,” he said, looking at me.

“Whatever it is you speak of, sure it bears waiting till after supper.”

“Yes,” I said, “it hath already waited a long time.”

•    •    •

“I am so cold,” he said. I knelt beside the chest and took a quilt from out it. He raised himself to watch me. “What keep you in that chest now?”

I lay the quilt over him. “Sheets and pillowcoats and candles.”

“ ’Tis better so,” he said. “Hast thou burned them all?”

“Aye, husband.”

“I copied out his name so oft it was almost my own, but they are in my hand. If any come for them, you must say you burned them with the bedding when I died.”

“I hear a sound upon the stairs,” I said. I hastened to the door. “I am glad you’ve come, son-in-law,” I said softly. “His fever is worse.”

John set a lidded cup upon the press and put his hand upon my husband’s brow. “Thou hast a fever.”

“I feel no fever,” he said. He spoke through chattering teeth. “I am as two people lying side by side in the bed, both like to freeze. A little sack would warm me.”

“I have somewhat for you better than sack.” He slid his hand behind my husband’s head to raise him to sitting. I put the pillows behind. “Drink you this.”

“What is it?”

“A decoction of herbs. Flavored with cloves and syrup of violets. Come, father-in-law,” John said kindly. “ ’Twill help your fever.”

He drank a swallow. “Vile potion!” he said. “Why did you not pour it in my ear and be done with it?” His hands shivered so that the liquid splashed onto the bedclothes, but he drank it down and gave the cup to John.

“Would you lie down again, husband?” I said, my hand to the pillows.

“Nay, leave them,” he said. “ ’Tis easier to breathe.”

“Is there naught else I can do to help him?” I said, drawing John aside.

“See he hath warm coverings and clean bedding.”

“ ’Tis freshly changed, and the featherbed on the bed new. I made it with my own hands.”

“The second-best bed,” my husband said, and turned, and slept.

We went downstairs, Drayton between us like a father who has caught his children kissing in a corner, prattling of beds and supper so that we could not speak. “Come, man,” Drayton said, “you’ve not had any sack from your own bowl.”

The board was already laid. Judith was spreading the cloth, Joan bringing in the salts, little Elizabeth laying the spoons. Joan said, “You once again would steal my brother from me, Anne. You never were so affectionate in the old days.”

I know not what I answered her, nor what I did, whether I served the fowl first or the sugar-meats, nor what I ate. All I could think of was that my husband was dead. I had not guessed that, through all the years when no word came and Old John cursed me for a shrew that had driven him away. I had not guessed it e’en when Old John nailed the coat of arms above the door of our new house.

I had thought mayhap my husband had suffered us to be stolen by a thief, as a careless man will let his pocket be picked, or that he’d lost us gaming, staking us all as he had staked my mother’s plate, and the winner would come to claim us, house and all. But he had not. He had been murdered and laid in someone else’s grave.

He sat at the head of the table, Drayton beside him. Drayton would not allow Elizabeth to be sent from table after she said her grace, but bade her sit on his broad knee. He talked and talked, following one story with another.

Joan sulked and preened by turns. Judith sat between Fox and Frill, feeding first one, then the other, her smiles and glances. “Remember you your father?” the Fox asked. “Had he a limp then?”

She answered him, all innocence, the way her father must have answered his assassins. He would have seen only what his desire showed him, ’twas ever his failing. And his father’s, who could not see a stranger’s face, so blinded was he by the colors of his coat of arms. His sister’s failing, too, who could not e’en see over a starch’d ruff. All blind, and he the worst. He would not even have seen the knife blade coming.

When the meal was already done and the dishes carried away, Susanna’s husband John came in, covered with snow, and was sat, and dishes warmed, and questions asked. “This is my grandsire,” Elizabeth said.

“Well met, at last,” John said, but I saw, watching from the kitchen, that he frowned. “I have been overlong at the birth of a cobbler’s son, and overlong coming home.”

Drayton called for a toast to the new babe, and then another. “We must toast Elizabeth’s birth, for we were not present at her christening,” he said. “Ah, and gave her not a christening gift.” He bade Elizabeth look in his ear.

She stood on tiptoe, her eyes round. “There’s naught in there but dirt,” she said.

Drayton laughed merrily. “Thou hast not looked well,” he said, and pulled a satin ribbon from out his ear.

“ ’Tis a trick,” Elizabeth said solemnly, “is it not, grandsire?”

“Aye, a trick,” he said. She climbed into his lap.

“He is not as I remembered him,” Susanna said, watching him tie the ribbon in Bess’s hair.

“Thou wert but four years old and Judith a babe when he left. Dost thou remember him?” I said.

“Only a little. I feared he would be like Aunt Joan, dressed in the fashion, playing the part of master of the house though he did not merit it.”

“It is his house,” I said, and thought of the name on the deed, the name that they had cajoled my husband into signing that he might copy it. “And all in it purchased with his money.”

“Marry, it is his house, though he never saw it till now,” she said. “I feared he would claim the house for his own, and us with it.”

He fastened the ribbon clumsily, tying it round a lock of Bess’s hair. “But he plays not that part,” I said.

“No. Knowest thou what he said to me, Mother, when I brought him his sack? He said, ‘Thy father was a fool to ever leave thee.’ ”

John Hall came and stood beside us, watching the tying of the ribbon. “Look how her ribbon comes loose,” Susanna said. “I’ll go and tie it.”

She went to Bess and would have tied the ribbon, but she tossed her head naughtily.

“My grandsire will do’t,” she said, and backed against his knees.

“My hands are too clumsy for this business, daughter,” he said. The lines had softened already in his face. He looked to her, and she, leaning o’er him, told him to loop the ribbon so and then to pull it through. Judith came and stood beside, smiling and advising.

“Notice you aught amiss about your husband?” John said.

“Amiss?” I said. I could not catch my breath. I had forgot that he had been to Cambridge, and to London, a learned man.

“I fear that he is ill,” John said.

Bess ran to us. “Father!” she cried. “Look you at my new ribbon,” and ran back again. “Grandsire, is’t not pretty?” She fairly leapt into his arms and kissed him on the cheek.

“Sweet Bess, ’twas not my gift, but Drayton’s.”

“But you tied it.”

“Is he very ill?” I said.

John looked kindly at me. “This country air will make him well again, and your kind ministrations. Shall we into the hall?”

“Nay,” I said. “I must go up to make the bed.”

I went out through the kitchen. The Fox and Frill stood by the stairs, whispering together. “You are mad,” the Frill said. “Look how his family greets him, his daughters gathering round him. It was an idle rumor, and no more.”

I hid inside the kitchen door that I might hear their conversation.

“His daughters were but babes when they last saw him,” the Fox said.

“The sister says he has changed not at all.”

“The sister is a fool. His wife greeted him not so eagerly. Saw you how she stood as a statue when first we came? ’Tis she should be the subject of our watch.”

I came into the hall. They bowed to me. The Fox would have spoken, but Drayton came and said, “Good mistress, I had missed you in the hall.”

“I’ll follow you in a little. I would make up the second-best bed.”

“No, I’ll accompany thee,” he said. “And you two see to the horses. They’ve not been fed.”

The Fox and Frill put on their cloaks and went out into the snow. Drayton climbed the stairs after me, puffing and talking the while. I went into my room and lit the candles.

He looked about him. “A great reckoning in a little room,” he said in a gentler voice than before. “I advised against his coming. I said it was not safe while any still lived who knew him, but he would see the daughters. Does the sister know?”

“Nay,” I said. I laid the coverlid upon the bed and looked to put it so that it hung straight. I set the bolsters at the head of the bed. “Who is he?”

He sat upon the press, his hands on his stout knees. “There was a time I could have answered you,” he said. “I knew him long ago.”

“Before the murder?”

“Before the murders.”

“They killed others?” I said. “Besides my husband?”

“Only one other,” he said. His voice downstairs had been loud and bold, an actor’s voice, but now it was so low I could scarce hear him, as though he spoke to himself. “You asked me who he is. I know not, though he was but a young man when first I knew him, a roguish young man, full of ambition and touched by genius, but reckless, overproud, taking thought only for himself.” He stopped and sat, rubbing his hands along his thighs. “Walsingham’s henchmen killed more men than they knew that wicked day at Deptford. I saw him on the street afterwards and knew him not, he was so changed. I would show you something,” he said, and raised himself awkwardly. He went to the chest in the corner, opened it, and proferred me the papers that lay therein. “Read them,” he said.

I gave them back to him. “I cannot read.”

“Then all is lost,” he said. “I thought to bargain with you for his life with these his plays.”

“To buy me.”

“I think you cannot be bought, but, aye, I would buy you any way I could to keep him safe. He hath been ill these two winters past. He has need of your refuge. The London air is bad for him, and there are rumors, from whence I know not.”

“The young men you brought here have heard them.”

“Aye, and wait their chance. I know that naught can replace your husband.”

“No,” I said, thinking of how he had stolen my honor and my mother’s plate and run away to London.

“You cannot bring your husband back from the dead, if you tell all the world. You will but cause another murder. I’ll not say one man’s life is worth more than another’s.” He brandished the papers. “No, by God, I will say it! Your husband could not have written words like these. This man is worth a hundred men, and I’ll not see him hanged.”

He lay the papers back into the chest and closed the lid. “Let us go back to London, and keep silence.”

Elizabeth ran into the room. “Come, granddame, come. We are to have a play.”

“A play?” Drayton said. He lifted Elizabeth up into his arms. “Madam, he has no life save what you grant him,” he said, and carried her down the stairs.

“The decoction will make him sleep,” John Hall said.

He slept already, his face less lined in rest. “And quench the fever?”

He shook his head. “I know not if it will. I fear it is his heart that brings it on.”

He put the cup into the pouch he carried. “I give you this,” he said. He proffered me a sheaf of papers, closely writ.

“What is’t?”

“My journal. Thy husband’s illness is there, my treatments of it, and all my thoughts. I’d have thee burn it.”

“Why?”

“We have been friends these three years. We’d drink a cup of ale, and sit, and talk. One day he chanced to speak of a play he’d writ, a sad play of a man who’d bartered his soul to the devil. He spoke of it as if he had forgot that I was with him: how it was writ and when, where acted. He marked not that I looked at him with wonder, and after a little, we went on to other things.”

He closed the pouch. “The play he spoke of was Kit Marlowe’s, who was killed in a brawl at Deptford these long years since.” He took the papers back from me and thrust them in the candle’s flame.

“Hast thou told Susanna?”

“I would not twice deprive her of a father.” The pages flamed. He thrust them in the grate and watched them burn.

“His worry is all Susanna’s inheritance,” I said, “and Judith’s. He bade me burn his plays.”

“And Marlowe’s?” he said, dividing the charring pages with his foot that they might the better burn. “Hast thou done it?”

A little piece of blackened paper flew up, the writing all burnt away. “Yes,” I said.

“Judith said we are to have a play,” Elizabeth said as we descended the stairs. She freed herself from Drayton’s arms and ran into the hall.

“Judith?” I said, and looked to where she stood. The Fox was at her side, his feathered cap wet with snow. He leaned against the wall, seeming not even to listen. The Frill squatted by the hearth, stretching his hands to the fire.

“Oh, grandsire, prithee do!” Elizabeth said, half climbing into his lap. “I never saw a play.”

“Yes, brother, a play,” Joan said.

Drayton stepped between them. “We are too few for a company, Mistress Bess,” he said, pulling at Elizabeth’s ribbon to make her laugh, “and the hour too late.”

“Only a little one, grandsire?” she begged.

“It is too late,” he said, looking at me. “But you shall have your play.”

The Fox stepped forward, too quick, taking the Frill by the sleeve and pulling him to his feet. “What shall we, Master Will?” he said, smiling with his sharp teeth. “A play within a play?”

“Aye,” Drayton said loudly. “Let us do Bottom’s troupe at Pyramus and Thisbe.”

The Fox smiled wider. “Or the mousetrap?” All of them looked at him, Judith smiling, the Fox waiting to snap, Master Drayton with a face taken suddenly sober. But he looked not at them, nor at Bess, who had climbed into his lap. He looked at me.

“A sad tale’s best for winter,” he said. He turned to the Frill. “Do ye the letter scene from Measure. Begin ye, ‘Let this Barnardine.’ ”

The Frill struck a pose, his hand raised in the air as if to strike. “ ‘Let this Barnardine be this morning executed and his head borne to Angelo,’ ” he said in a loud voice.

He stopped, his finger pointing toward the Fox, who did not answer.

Drayton said, “ ’tis an old play. They know it not. Come, let’s have Bottom. I’ll act the ass.”

“If they know not the play, then I’ll explain it,” the Fox said. “The play is called Measure for Measure. It is the story of a young man who is in difficulty with the law and would be hanged, but another is killed in his place.” He pointed at the Frill. “Play out the play.”

“ ‘Let this Barnardine be this morning executed and his head borne to Angelo.’ ” the Frill said.

The Fox looked at Drayton. “ ‘Angelo hath seen them both, and will discover the favor.’ ”

The Frill smiled, and it was a smile less slack-jawed and more cruel than I had seen, a wolfen smile. “ ‘Oh, Death’s a great disguiser,’ ” he said.

“An end to this!” I said.

Both of them looked at me, Fox and Frill, disturbed from their prey.

“The child is half-asleep,” I said.

“I am not!” Bess said, rubbing at her eyes, which made the party laugh.

I stood her down from off his lap. “Thou mayest have plays tomorrow, and tomorrow, and the next day. Thy grandfather is home to stay.”

Susanna hurried forward. “Good night, Father. I am well content that you are home.” She fastened Bess’s cloak about her neck.

“Will you a play for me tomorrow, grandsire?” Bess said.

He stroked her hair. “Aye, tomorrow.”

Bess flung her arms about his neck. “Good night, grandsire.”

John Hall picked up the child in his arms. She lay her head upon his shoulder. “I will take the actors with us,” John said softly to me. “I trust them not in the house with Judith.”

He turned to the Fox and Frill and said in a loud voice, “Gentlemen, you’re to bed with us tonight. Will you come now? Aunt Joan, we will walk you home.”

“Nay,” Joan said haughtily, stretching her neck to look more proud. Her ruff moaned and creaked. “I would stay awhile, and them with me.”

John opened the door, and they went out into the snow, Elizabeth already asleep.

“Marry, now they are gone, we’ll have our play, brother.”

“Nay,” I said, kneeling to put my hands in his. “I am a wife long parted from her husband. I would to bed with him ere sunrise.”

“You loved not your husband so well in the old days,” Joan said, her hands upon her hips. “Brother, you will not let her rule you?”

“I shall do whatever she wills.”

“I know a scene will do us perfectly,” Drayton said. He spread his arms. “ ‘Our revels now are ended.’ ” He donned his wide cloak. “Come, Mistress Joan, I will accompany thee to thy home and these two to Hall’s croft and thence to a tavern for a drop or two of sack ere I return.”

Judith walked with them to the far end of the hall and opened the door. I knelt still with his hands in mine. “Why did you this?” he asked. “Hath Drayton purchased you with pity?”

“Nay,” I said softly. “You cannot leave. Your daughters would be sad to have you go, and you have promised Elizabeth a play. You asked if there was aught that you could do for them. Be thou their father.”

“I will and you will answer me one question. Tell me when you discovered me.”

“I knew you ere you came.”

His hands clasped mine.

“When Hamnet died, and Old John went to London to tell my husband,” I said, “he came home with a coat of arms he said his son had got for him, but I believed him not. His son, my husband, would ne’er have raised his hand to help his father or to give his daughters a house to dwell in. I knew it was not he who did us such kindness, but another.”

“All these long years I thought that none knew me, that all believed me dead. And so it was as I were dead, and buried in Deptford, and he the one who lived. But you knew me.”

“Yes.”

“And hated me not, though I had killed your husband.”

“I knew not he was dead. I thought he’d lost us dicing, or sold us to a kinder master.”

“Sold?” he said. “What manner of man would sell such treasure?”

“ ‘The iron tongue of midnight hath told twelve. Good night, good rest!’ ” Drayton called from the door. “ ‘Sweet suitors, to bed.’ ”

I rose from where I knelt, holding still to his hands. “Come, husband,” I said. “The bed at last is made, in time for bed.”

“The bed,” he said, so weak I scarce could hear him.

“What is’t, husband?”

“I have left you a remembrance in the will.” He smiled at me. “I will not tell you of it now. ‘Twill please thee to hear it when the will is read.”

He had forgot that I sat by him when he made his will.

“John’s foul decoction hath made me better,” he said. “I am as one again, not split in two.”

I laid my hand upon his brow. It was more hot than ever. I went to fetch another quilt from out the chest.

“Nay, come and sit with me and hold my hands,” he said. “I have paid the sexton a French crown to write a curse upon my grave, that none will dig me up and say, That is not he.’ ”

“Prithee, speak not of dying,” I said.

“I wrote not mine own will, but signed it only. They had him write out his name ere they killed him, that I might copy it.”

“I know, husband. Soft, do not fret thyself with—”

“It matters not whose name is on the plays, so that my daughters’ inheritance is safe. Hast thou burnst them all?”

“Yes,” I said, but I have not. I have sewn them in the new featherbed. I will ensure it is not burnt with the bedding when he dies, and so will keep them safe, save the house itself burns down. I will do naught to endanger their inheritance nor the love they bear their father, but in after years the papers can be found and his true name set on them. The clew lies in the will.

“Wife, come sit by me and hold my hands,” he says, though I hold them already. “I have left thee something in the will, a token of that night when first I came. I have bequeathed to thee the second-best bed.”

Content

Winter’s Tale
by Connie Willis