Free Dark Aemilia by Sally O'Reilly

apples – have swelled up so they seem ready to burst out of my bodice, and are painful to the touch. And I seem to have gained a layer of fat, even though everything I eat tastes like pewter. If I were a pig, I would soon be ready for the pot. I am nauseous and dizzy and can barely think. The pregnancy itself seems like a spell. I sleep in dream snatches, and see Will and Hunsdon fuck together, and wake twisted in the bed-sheets, crying out.
    At last my head clears. Hunsdon has gone away, to execute some Catholics at York. And I hold Will off, writing a coded note to say I am too ill to meet him in our little room. Which is no more than the truth. If I am to do something to save myself, the time to act is now.
    Alice, as luck would have it, is a stupid, unobservant girl, who lives most vividly in the looking glass. Thus, she sees nothing strange in my repeated bouts of puking.
    ‘Dear me, mistress, what have you eaten?’ says she, fetching me a cup of small beer as I empty my guts into the close stool. ‘You’ve been ill for days! And yet you’re no thinner – there’s a marvel!’
    ‘A marvel indeed,’ I say, sipping from the cup. My mind is sharper after this last horrid spewing-up, as if I have rid myself of some internal confusion along with my breakfast. ‘We must go out.’
    ‘Are you sure you’re well enough, mistress? You’re very pale.’
    ‘I am well enough to visit an apothecary,’ I say. ‘To seek a cure for this unpleasant malady.’
    ‘Oh, but I could go for you,’ says the girl, all eager. I know why: she will have the chance to prance past the law students at Middle Temple, showing off her pretty clothes, though they are like as not more interested in Aristotle’s ‘Refutations’ than in her Spanish ruff. ‘Oh – please let me!’
    ‘No, Alice, we shall both go. Hurry up, and don’t start messing with your cap. I’m well enough now, but may soon be worse again.
     
    Most of the apothecaries’ shops are found in Bucklersbury, a narrow street which winds away from Cheapside. In the swirling City stenches this is a place which offers a rare delight to Londoners, for you can smell it half a mile away, such is the sweetscent of its herbs and spices. But, of the hundred apothecaries who trade in the City, I have heard that half are useless and the rest are cozeners. On most occasions I send a servant to see Ned Hollybushe, whose father has wrote an excellent book upon this subject. But today…
    ‘Why here, mistress? Off the beaten way?’ asks Alice. ‘This is not our usual man!’ We have arrived in a cramped courtyard, which reeks even more strongly than the busy street. The jutting storeys of the ancient houses make it dusk at midday. An open shop front stands before us, the counter folded out so that – in theory – we can see within. But all that is visible is the shop sign, which is a hanging tortoise. Behind this I can see nothing.
    ‘Wait here,’ I say.
    ‘Oh, but, mistress…’
    ‘Do what I tell you.’
    And, with that, I push open the door of the shop and go inside. What strikes me first is its exotic scent, something between the smell of cumin and sweet basil. But as I look around me I see that the shop is very different from what I have been expecting. Though it is ill lit, there is a shaft of sunlight coming from a window set high in the wall, and I see that it is a larger space than had seemed possible from the street. The walls are dull red and lined with shelves, upon which are ranged pots and pitchers and drug-jars made of blue and white porcelain, painted with red and blue flowers and symbols and marked with the name of the herb or spice which they contain. On the floor beside the counter is a giant pestle and mortar, as big as a bucket. Everything is polished and clean, so that the falling rays of sunlight are reflected in the shining surfaces. So much precision and order, such neatness – I confess I am surprised.
    Behind the counter stands the apothecary,