Free Love Disguised by Lisa Klein

child.” She was satisfied to see Violetta quake. “I advise you to be in less haste to find a husband.”
    Chastened, Violetta rubbed her arm where Roger Ruffneck’s fingers had left a darkening bruise.
    Violetta remained irrepressible, like grass that springs upright after being flattened by rain. Only days after Meg threw Roger Ruffneck from the Boar’s Head, Violetta bounded up to her. “O Meg, yonder sits the fairest young man ever! He hails from the town of Straight Forward Uneven.”
    Meg topped off one pitcher of ale and started another. “He lies. I have never heard of such a place. Didn’t I warn you, you’ll find no fit husband here?”
    â€œThis one is not married, of that I am certain. I heard him swear to his companions, ‘By my name, Will Shake-his-beard,I love no woman.’ I dislike that surname. But he does have a beard, though it is not long enough to shake even when he speaks.” Violetta tugged Meg’s hand. “Come and see. I’ll be sworn he is not a rogue.”
    Meg looked askance at her. “Nay, he sounds more like a clown. Does he have a bauble topped by a bell that rings when he says something foolish?”
    Not wanting her friend to fall into bad company again, Meg took a pitcher of ale and went to judge the newcomer for herself. She found a country-bred fellow holding forth, a goodly youth with wavy dark hair, a high forehead, and a trim beard. He was flanked by two companions, dandies bedecked with ruffs, rings, and feathers.
    Meg felt her grip weaken and the pitcher start to slip.
    One of the dandies had a crooked nose and his busy fingers tapped the table. The other held out his cup and smiled at her, showing a black cavity where his front teeth used to be.
    Meg’s pitcher crashed to the floor.

Chapter 10
    Will had hired a horse and left Stratford as fast as the spavined creature permitted him. Twenty-five crowns were tucked safely in his boot, and he carried the Burbage contracts, the court summons, and three pairs of gloves to barter for favors. The two-day journey took him eastward to Warwick then to Daventry. In Towcester a pair of gloves bought him supper amidst a lively company, a quantity of ale, and a bed that spun beneath him all night. In the morning he had a pounding head and a confused memory of having kissed more than one wench. With so many pretty girls in England, it would not be hard to forget the Hathaway sisters. He rode through Brick Hill, Dunstable, and Barnet on a thoroughfare crowded with horses, carts, and foot traffic bound for the city of his dreams.
    Will was feeling older than his eighteen years, a man of the world, until he climbed the last hill before London and saw the city for the first time. A veritable forest of close-set rooftops, pierced at intervals by church towers, stretched from east to west for a considerable distance. A wall with towers and crenelations bound the city on three sides, andthe watery Thames made a fourth boundary. Like a vine sending out shoots, the city unfurled beyond the walls and over the rolling land. Thoroughfares lined with buildings reached out from the city in all directions, and smaller roads crisscrossed one another and meandered over fields. How in a place so vast, Will wondered, would he ever find employment? Where would he begin to look for William Burbage and Thomas Greene, the lawyer?
    These misgivings almost made him turn homeward until he considered the troubles he was fleeing. He left the old horse with a dealer and pocketed the few shillings that were returned to him. At the statue of a griffin he paid his toll and passed through Aldersgate. He was in London! At once he was jostled from all sides and was glad he had taken precautions against pickpockets. With no fear of being robbed, he let the crowd carry him along into the widest street he had ever seen. He asked what it was called and was told “Cheapside.” Indeed it was a thoroughfare