Free Dark Aemilia by Sally O'Reilly Page B

to do with you.’
    The strange pair leave. Joan Daunt waits until the door bangs shut, and then turns to look at me. She seems neither alarmed nor grateful for my help.
    ‘How can I help you?’ she asks, looking me over. ‘I see you have plenty of need for cures.’
    ‘Do you, indeed?’ A wave of sickness comes over me.
    ‘You’ll end up keeping it,’ she says.
    ‘Keeping what?’
    ‘The child.’
    ‘I never said…’
    ‘You didn’t have to.’
    ‘Well, you are quite wrong. I do want rid of it..’
    ‘Yes, but I just told you –’
    ‘I need something strong. And I don’t mind what you put in it. A hanged man’s sperm is fine with me. It can burn my womb out, for all I care.’
    ‘So that you could never have a child?’
    ‘Why should I want one? All they do is bind you, and I am bound enough already.’
    The Widow stares at me, and I see something unexpected: kindness. ‘Sit down,’ she says. ‘I’ll do you something. But you won’t drink it.’
    She collects together some jars and bottles, takes out a pestle and mortar – of larger than usual size – and fills it with leaves and fragments, which she begins to grind. Then she scoops a hideous little fish from a jar and scrapes the scales from its wriggling form. These she places into a clay burner and a most obnoxiousperfume fills the air. What she has made – a sickly, semi-liquid paste, the colour of a dog turd – she squeezes into a tiny vial and stops with wax.
    ‘Your remedy,’ she says, handing it to me. ‘Swallow it in one draught. The babe will come out in three spasms, whole and pulsing, but too small for you to see its face. It will be dead in five minutes.’
    I open my mouth to speak, but she holds up her finger.
    ‘Be careful. You are in a bad way. And your old life is over, have no doubt of that. And… when you need me, send word.’
    ‘I have servants, Mistress Daunt. I am well cared for.’
    ‘Nonetheless, I wait upon your word. And, when I hear from you, then I will come. Remember that.’
    I look at the vial and its horrid contents, puzzled. The potion is not still, but heaves and oozes, as if in some low kind of pain. And the stench is such that I can smell it through its coat of glass.

Scene VIII
    I will wait one more day, to see if my curse might start. Another night of prayer might see the unborn child bleed harmlessly away. The potion looks so horrible, and the thought of swallowing it is disgusting to me. But it is hard to wait for anything. I sit at my virginals in my parlour, and try to play a tune. It is a pretty piece called ‘Giles Farnaby’s Dream’, which can usually calm my nerves but today it only vexes me: its brightness seems too far removed from the world I know. I look at the painted wainscot, the Turkey carpet which takes pride of place over the fireplace, the half-finished skirt that lies in a ripple of azure satin across my bed. Nothing seems real. I am like a child’s toy, which is now broken and must be mended. My head aches. My eyes are sore. My velvet bodice digs into my flesh. I slam the lid down on the virginals, so that the strings let out a plaintive note. Snatching up my cloak, I rush down the stairwell and into the courtyard. I feel as if there must be a way out of all this trouble, if only I could clear my head and think. The gateway to St James’s Park is open. I slip through it, and hurry into the darkening trees.
    I put my face in my hands and moan. What to do? What to do? It is Will’s child, I am sure of it – the fruit of all our hidden passion. I am not certain where the souls of unborn, unbaptised children are supposed to go, now that the Queen of England is our Pope, but in the old days they dwelt in Limbo. It does not sound like a good place for my unborn babe to be. Yet what else can I do but kill it? There is no way out. I should have kept away from Will. But I did not, I could not. Now what will become of me?
    Just as I am racked with another bout of sobs, I find