Chapter 35 Anassa #2
Then I spot them, and the image stops me in my tracks.
Shakespeare and Claret, sitting side by side on a bench, looking like long-time drinking buddies rather than people who can barely tolerate each other.
They raise their glasses towards a second man, perched on a stool across from them, curly brown hair reaching his shoulders.
He sits straight, like my husband’s soldiers did, back in the world that was inspired by this one – yet was so different, because that world didn’t have Claret.
My eyes go to her, eager. She wears her cloak open, a butter-coloured dress underneath making her look so much like strawberries and cream it takes my breath away.
How aren’t all the men here salivating?
I see some looks from the surrounding tables aimed in her direction, but any hunger in them is transient, tempered, laced with ale-addled mirth and curiosity.
Claret’s gaze finds me, sharp and inquisitive and tender, twin fires dancing together with relief.
‘You finally woke up,’ she says as I approach the table.
‘Scoot over,’ she commands Shakespeare, to make some room for me to sit beside her.
Miraculously, he obliges without fuss, giving me a brief but genuine smile before returning to his conversation.
What has transpired between them while I was lost to the world?
The bench is beside the fireplace, now lit, and both his face and Claret’s have turned rosy from the heat – and, presumably, the drinks.
I sit with them, a strange pang in my heart at their newly minted camaraderie.
‘We were worried.’ I feel more than hear Claret’s voice as I settle in next to her, thrumming against my skin, more intoxicating than any glass of aqua vitae.
‘Both of us, so much. I’ve never seen a man sweat like that, pace like that, comb his hair with his fingers as he mumbled at your bedside.
We took you upstairs when you fainted; Mary helped me get you cleaned up and settled.
’ She gives me an assessing look. ‘Her dress doesn’t fit you.
But this world is cold, and it seems we have a trip ahead of us. ’
I choose to brush away the information about Shakespeare’s supposed agony.
Clearly, he was acting, or he has a plan.
Instead, I want to ask Claret what she means about a trip, and who this man they’re talking to is.
But a tankard filled with frothy ale and a bowl filled with stew land in front of me, almost sloshing me with their contents.
‘There she is, our sleeping lass. Ye gave us quite the fright.’
I look up, taking in the inn maid. Mary. No weird threads or fated visions, this time. She smiles a round of yellowing, crooked teeth, yet so entirely human I could kiss her. ‘Thank you so much for everything,’ I say, patting my dress in acknowledgement.
‘No need to thank me, yer cousin here is gracious with his coin. Glad yer not ill – though I’m amazed you can even hold a spoon with such frostbitten fingers.
And Lord knows you could do with eating more.
I haven’t seen my dress so loose on anyone since my wee bairn of a niece borrowed it one time.
Go on then, tuck in.’ She points to the stew in front of me, and I oblige with more thanks before she leaves us.
I’m surprised to find the food delicious.
Potatoes, turnips and chunks of soft meat, in a brown sauce that smells like barley, sweet and enticing.
I devour almost all of it until I’m able to frame coherent thoughts again, to turn my focus outward.
After taking a small sip of the ale, I ask Claret in a low voice, ‘What trip? And who is he?’
She gives me a grin I can only call ‘diabolical’.
A grin that by all means should chill me to the bone – if my bones were not so busy melting from the strange heat of her closeness.
‘Dear cousin,’ she starts, dragging the word cousin between her teeth like I imagine a warrior would drag his foe’s fallen body behind them, ‘this is Thom. He will ride with us to Elgin, where we can see the cathedral being built. Just as our dear, departed cousin always wanted.’
I blink, dumbfounded. I understand every word Claret just uttered, yet cannot string them together into any necklace that makes sense. ‘Our dear, departed cousin,’ I repeat, as if it’s some kind of incantation, and saying the words will grant me wisdom.
‘Ah, Ana, I see Clarissa has filled you in on our plans,’ Shakespeare says, lifting his tankard.
‘Let’s have a toast. To your dear, departed cousin, my beloved wife, light of my eyes.
May our trip be short and fruitful, so that we’re able to fulfil her devout dying wishes, by gazing upon the foundations for the grand cathedral of Elgin, a monument to Christianhood. ’
‘Hear, hear,’ the man called Thom says.
I raise my own mug, trying to stop my hand from shaking.
I remember, then, the story Shakespeare used back in the woods, when he told Crinan that we were his dead wife’s cousins and we’d been robbed along the way.
But all the rest … Using fake names for us, inventing a reason to visit a cathedral …
I try to think of what he mentioned about Gruoch and her husband, when we were in his ghost-cultivated garden, before we found Ophelia.
There were some battles this Macbethad fought, one near Birnam Wood and one in …
‘Elgin,’ I say out loud, finally catching up.
‘Yes, our beloved cousin will be there in spirit, I hope.’
Shakespeare’s slow nod tells me I got it.
A different apprehension fills me, then. Why is he helping us find Gruoch? I look at Claret, but she keeps her eyes on her drink. ‘This is amazing,’ she muses. Thom gives her a perplexed look. Unfazed, she adds, ‘We don’t have this drink where I’m from.’
‘That’s right, Marlowe here mentioned yer from Italy.’ Thom points at Shakespeare, who has the audacity to smile, as if pleased by the web of lies he has so elegantly erected.
Claret only raises her glass again, and drinks without further comment.
It fascinates me; how confusing this world must be for her, yet she blends easier than I do, quicker to act while I keep hesitating, dissecting every word for clues.
This is not even her own language; it’s only thanks to the Fates’ consistent trickery that she can understand us, communicate.
And she already does it well enough to trick the locals, if needs must. A swell of jealousy, admiration and a secret third thing still threaten to unmoor me.
‘Well, then, it’s getting late and we have a long ride ahead of us.
Near eight hours of trotting – we’ll be going slow, with these old beasts we have for horses.
Pleasure to make yer acquaintance, ladies.
’ Thom gets up, empties his drink in one gulp and tips his head towards us before departing.
He’s tall, and walking steadfast, not wobbly from drinking.
Something about this detail gives me pause; he stands out amid the relaxed atmosphere of the tavern.
I see some people’s heads turning to him as he passes, nodding solemnly. Is he some kind of leader?
No matter. It’s finally the three of us, so I open my mouth to ask all the questions that are burning me.
But before I’m able to, Claret squeezes my hand – and it feels like she has squeezed my heart, so intense and purposeful is her touch.
Shakespeare’s gaze travels from our joint hands to my face.
His eyes are weary, the brown in them like wizened oak’s bark.
‘Not here,’ he mouths, before taking another drink.
‘Ah, it warms the heart,’ he says out loud.
Too loud. ‘How lucky are we to have come across the good folks of Tomnavoulin? I was hoping we’d get to shake Crinan’s hand before we left, buy him a drink for finding you, dear cousins, when all hope was lost and I feared the snow would claim you …
But alas, he’s not back yet from his travels.
Our good hostess, Mary, is beside herself with worry.
He’s her wee brother, you know.’ He looks at me, desperate, hoping I understand.
Oh. I understand, only too well. Although the name Tomnavoulin means nothing to me – if it exists in my world, it’s probably too small to warrant a queen being aware of it – it’s plain to see we won’t be safe here.
If Crinan was against Gruoch, against his queen and king, then maybe everyone around us is, too.
Which would explain that sad cathedral story.
We can’t very well say we’ll be visiting a monarch these good folks might want dead.
‘Very lucky indeed,’ Claret says, every word slow and sharp. Her lips twitch only slightly. ‘We should go upstairs too. Long trip, and some of us have not been sleeping all day.’
She gives me a look that’s supposed to be scathing, but I’ve seen her scathing. This is velvet, warm and inviting, telling me once more how my fainting worried her.
‘A great idea,’ Shakespeare agrees with haste. ‘Pity my old room wasn’t available, I don’t look forward to a night on that bench … But you two ladies will have the bed, of course.’
The bed.
Singular.
A maelstrom hits me, freezing cold and scalding warm at the same time, at the thought of Claret sharing that narrow bed with me, at Shakespeare thinking this is fine.
But what is there to say?
Shakespeare gets up, dropping some coins on the table. Claret empties her drink, then follows suit, leaving me with no choice but to echo her movements. On the floor above our heads, my instrument of torment beckons. I can almost hear it squeaking in anticipation.
It’s just one night, I repeat to myself, over and over like a trapped raven tapping on a window, as I follow Shakespeare and Claret up the stairs to our room, to that bed.