Free Dark Aemilia by Sally O'Reilly Page A

Widow Daunt. She wears a white bonnet, and her face is sallow and deeply lined. Her expression is somewhat sour, as if a shop like hers might do very well if only she didn’t have the bother of serving customers.But there is no shortage of these. Joan Daunt is well known for her foul but cunning remedies.
    Indeed, there are two people at the counter. A tall woman and her old manservant. The woman is wearing a fine wool cloak and her golden hair is arranged with great care. She turns to look as I come in, and I see that she has an old, shrivelled face, which is out of keeping with her good clothes and upright carriage. Her pretty hair must be a wig.
    ‘Is that all you have to say?’ she asks, turning back to look at Widow Daunt.
    ‘All what?’ asks the Widow. She has a surly manner, for a shopkeeper.
    ‘That you can do nothing else for me?’
    ‘What I have to say, madam, is that you came to me for an elixir to make you beautiful. Sparing your feelings as best I may, I told you no such thing exists, and gave you what I could, instead. And that was a potion to make a young man
think
you comely, at least for the space of one night.’
    ‘Wine can accomplish that much,’ says the woman.
    ‘Indeed it can, and I told you at the time that there was wine in that mixture and by all accounts it did its work.’
    ‘He loved for one night, that is true.’
    ‘So our deal is sound.’
    The woman draws breath deeply, and I realise that she is on the brink of tears.
    ‘It is not enough, Mistress Daunt! I demand more! I want more from you!’
    Joan Daunt leans forward across the counter. ‘What more would that be, mistress?’
    ‘I want him to love me!’ wails the woman. ‘I had him! I had him for one night – and what joy it was! And, when day broke, he looked down on me and fled the chamber. Make him love me! I demand you make him love me!’
    ‘How shall I do such a thing?’
    ‘Give me another potion! A stronger one this time.’ She nods, and the manservant produces a money bag.
    ‘Something to make him love you for longer?’ asks Widow Daunt.
    ‘I want you to make me young again. And beautiful. Forever. I have money. I don’t care what pain I suffer, or how vile the treatment.’
    Widow Daunt seems to find this a very good joke. ‘Madam, I am an apothecary, not Almighty God. Take your business elsewhere. Or you could always pray.’
    The woman nods to the servant and he takes the Widow by the shoulders. ‘Do as my mistress says, or take the consequences,’ he says. ‘Do it, old woman, or you will suffer for it.’
    ‘Get away with you, you buffoon!’ says the Widow. ‘I will not be spoken to like that in my own shop! Get out, the pair of you!’
    Then the woman leans forward and slaps her hard, across the face.
    This is quite enough. I throw the hood from my head and approach them. ‘Kindly do the Widow’s bidding and leave this shop, if you have no further business,’ I say. ‘I have waited long enough to be served, and you are wasting my time as well as insulting her. You can’t bully your way to beauty, madam, nor bribe your looks back from Time. They’ve gone, and there’s an end to it.’
    The woman turns her tear-stained face to me. ‘It is all very well for
you
,’ she says. ‘Old age comes to all of us, but
you
are still young.’
    ‘Get out, the pair of you,’ I say. ‘Leave the Widow be, and go about your business.’
    The servant keeps his grasp. I draw out Hunsdon’s paper-knife and point it at his neck. ‘This knife was given me by the great John Dee himself. There is venom in this blade. One prick from this and you’ll fall stone dead, right on the spot. The lastperson to feel its point lived for just two minutes. It’s not a sight I’d wish to see again.’
    The servant lets go of the widow and leans away from me, his veined eyes full of terror.
    ‘Who on
earth
are you?’ shrieks the woman. ‘Who is John Dee to you?’
    ‘I am Queen Mab,’ I say, ‘for all it’s got