in the box and took it with me.
Act Two
CHAPTER SIX
Even in my dazed state, London stunned me. From our view on the Hampstead hills above the city, everything seemed crammed between the wall and the huge silver snake that was the River Thames. So many houses and people, nearly two hundred thousand, so Stephen said, though how anyone could count them all, I know not. As daylight waned, our pack train passed St. Giles’ Church and a public water conduit just before we approached the city on Wood Street.
Oh, the smells and noises! I could barely imagine what it would be like in warm weather, for a ditch with partly frozen offal and refuse ran right down the center of the street. The sounds of horses, of course, I’d expected, but the clatter and calls of the vendors hawking everything from hot sheep’s feet to pigeon pies assailed me. “What do ye lack!” they shouted over and over as well as calling out their particular wares. Carters and carriage drivers screeched at those on foot to get out of the way, and our own carriers shouted at people to stand clear. Once in a while, a rough voice called out rude greetings I tried to ignore.
“Ho, then, that dark beauty for sale with yer goods, man?”
“If we be invaded by the Spanish, hope they look like that wench, eh?”
“Over here, Cleopatra! Look my way, and I—”
That voice too blessedly faded in the tumult and turnings. I had hoped that in London I would not stand out as being so different, but the old taunt of “Egyptian!” haunted me again. At least, I tried to buck myself up, Cleopatra was Egypt’s queen. Despite my fears and grief, I lifted my chin higher.
“What do you think of it all?” Stephen called to me as we passed through a redbrick, turreted city portal called Cripplegate.
All I could manage was, “I think I’m not in Stratford anymore.” But Will was. However hard I struggled to banish him from my mind, he would not budge. Would he ever come to London to follow his dreams? If so, I would somehow get even with him then.
The Whateley carriers headed our pack train down the street past inns, livery halls and ordinaries—alehouses that served food, Stephen explained. Tenements three stories high seemed to teeter over the busy thoroughfare. The huddled buildings blocked out the biting winds but dimmed the late-winter daylight. This area was stuffed with packers from the northern shires of the kingdom, Durham, Yorkshire and Worcester; their journeys ended at the sprawling carrier inns like the White Hinde, the Swan with Two Necks and the Castle. I glimpsed quieter side streets lined by craftsmen’s shops with wooden signs trumpeting their wares.
“That’s Silver Street,” Stephen called, pointing down one to our right. “Metalsmiths, goldsmiths even, ones to make pretty gifts for ladyloves.”
I just nodded and ignored his implication. Each night when we’d stayed at some rustic inn, he’d managed careful hints of his devotion. But Will’s ring bounced in its box within the heavy sack I wore over my shoulder, because I did not trust it to my saddle packs. Also there was my record book, Will’s sonnet to me—only saved, I told myself, as a piece of paper to muffle the sound of the coins I’d brought—and the fan that Kat’s parents had given me when she died. The plumed hat her father had made for me took up too much room in the saddle packs, but I couldn’t bear to leave it behind. Besides, should I ever go to Whitehall Palace to see the queen pass by, I shall wear it, I told myself.
I felt exhausted as we turned into the sprawling Maiden Head Inn, the one we midlanders used. Will was married to two maidens now, my thoughts tumbled on, wed to both of his Annes. A pox on the man, for our union had been binding! Instead of vacating the field of battle, I should have marched to the center of Rother Market to declaim to all Stratford that Will had two wives. Then, like that Henley Street neighbor years ago, Will would have had to leave, and if he’d come here, I’d tell him exactly what I thought of him!
What if I too were with child? Would Fulk Sandells and his ilk hunt me even here to tell me to keep clear of Will, the Hathaways and the Shakespeares? Would I then be forced to marry Stephen Dench to keep my