Chapter 37 Anassa #2
I scoff, bringing to mind that horrid garden. ‘Resting place … I’m sure Ophelia would beg to differ. Somehow drowning all the time wouldn’t be my chosen definition of “resting”.’
He gives me the most withering look. ‘Dreadful, her condition. And so very useful, it would seem, if someone were to stage a disappearance.’
‘Enough,’ Claret says, and we both stop in mid-sentence, insults forgotten.
Her tone is regal, resolute. ‘So, Shepherd did send you? To bring her two wild hens back to the coop? Yet you’re too lenient for a rooster, too worried for a guard dog.
Why are we going on this little trip to Elgin?
Why not drag us back by our hair – or die trying? ’
‘Because,’ Shakespeare starts, his eyes on the remnants of our meal, ‘it’s my fault.
Or rather, my responsibility. When Lady Mac—when Anassa broke into my study …
that shouldn’t have been possible. No story should challenge its creator with such fervour, such impunity.
But you two …’ He combs his hair with both hands, a gesture I’ve learned to understand means nervousness, frustration. ‘I don’t even know what you two are.’
The silence stretches for a bit too long.
‘Perhaps Shepherd is right,’ Claret says eventually, and I am too stunned to object.
‘We’re all just stories, in the end – but some of us are old enough to remember being otherwise.
And memory can be the oddest thing. In the part of her prison meant to look like my world, the people there remember an entirely different name for her.
Seshat. Daughter of Thoth, Aegyptian god of knowledge. Ruler of all stories ever written.’
She says these last two words, ‘ever written’, slowly, as if it’s a hint.
I recall Shepherd commenting on how old Claret’s story is, almost as old as her, and wonder if that means there’s a balance that could be upended – to our favour.
But Shakespeare misses it entirely. His face lights up like a little kid being given sweets.
‘Oh, this makes so much sense! I should have seen it, the Egyptian motifs, her resemblance to Cleopatra …’ He gets up, starts pacing, and I can tell he’s eager for a quill, some ink.
His fingers make a little dance in the air, tracing ghost words.
‘Cleopatra … I must remember this when I wake up.’
‘Wake up?’ My voice is shriller than I’d like, but I can’t help it. ‘Do you think this is a dream? Did getting chased by filthy, pitchfork-wielding peasants feel like a dream to you?’
‘No, of course there’s danger here.’ He puts the emphasis on the last word.
‘Here, we could all die. For good. And no door or key or Shepherd will be able to save us. But that is why I volunteered, though she was loath to let me. To help bring you back, safely. And perhaps I could get to meet Gruoch and that infamous husband of hers …’
Ah, there it is. He is as hungry to meet the real Macbethads who inspired his play as I am – if for different reasons. ‘So you’re helping us, out of the kindness of your heart.’
‘Let us not speak of hearts, or kindness, my wonderful villainess.’ He bows to me, only half-mockingly. But there is something in his eyes, some sort of cautious respect I hadn’t noticed earlier. Like recognizes like.
‘So.’ Claret’s voice snaps me out of it.
‘We have a cat queen, not in control of her own kingdom. And bringing back us two rebels will help.’ There’s a glint in her eye as she lets that statement settle for a bit, heavy with implications I can’t fully grasp yet.
I want to ask her what she means, what she knows, but she gets up abruptly.
‘And for whatever reason, you two are dead set on complicating things further by going to meet another queen. Fine. I’m going to get some sleep, as I’m guessing we still have hours of voyage ahead of us.
One of you should keep watch.’ She doesn’t explicitly say that to Shakespeare, but her intent is clear enough.
I get up, uncertain, watching her disappear inside the carriage. I gaze at Shakespeare.
‘Oh, go ahead,’ he says, shooing me. ‘I need some time with my thoughts and you will only frustrate and distract me.’
I hear the kindness hidden in his words. ‘Thank you, Will.’
He cocks an eyebrow. ‘Such insolence, calling me by my first name. You really are a wild thing, aren’t you?’
I smile, and leave without a single scathing word.
Inside the carriage, I find Claret a red bundle on the floor, shaking – from cold, or from exhaustion.
It can’t have been easy, driving these horses hard, for hours.
Fresh out of reasons why I shouldn’t, I lie beside her, and hold her in my arms until her muscles loosen and she sleeps.
I count her breaths, matching them to the beating of my heart, as all the stars in the night sky of my heart behoove me to keep holding her forever.
Forever becomes rudely interrupted by a fake cough.
‘We should get going soon. We’re just outside of Rothes, if the last sign I spotted on the road is to be trusted. Which means it’s at least three hours more till Elgin, and we might not be granted court should we arrive too late.’
Will. He stands at the carriage’s opening, but with his back politely turned on us.
I don’t know when I first started thinking of him as simply Will, simply a man, or when I stopped being so certain he controls my fate. But at this moment, I wish that Mary’s rock hadn’t broken down to pieces when she threw it.
That I had something to throw back at him for waking us.
Waking us …
Claret squirms in my arms – and just that squirming is enough to send shivers down my spine.
She turns around to look at me and I am trying, very hard, to focus, but her bosom squishes over mine and the smallest movement makes me more aware of my nipples than I’ve ever been.
Eternity would be too short a time to savour this.
‘We need to get back on the road, don’t we?’ she whispers.
I nod. I make to get up, but she holds me down.
‘Explain to me why this is so important. Why Gruoch is so important. In terms that I can understand,’ she adds, echoing the phrase she had used when we first met.
That was the moment I first realized there was a heart, an intellect behind her then blood-soaked presence. How far we’ve come!
I try to string my thoughts in order.
‘Shepherd showed me a folio.’ She glares at me, the ‘what did I just say’ unspoken.
‘I’m sorry, a folio is a bunch of papers, of …
papyri, folded together. It carries words on it, words that make a story someone’s written.
I read it. It was my story. Depicting everything that happened in my life, every word I’d ever uttered, up to the point where I jumped off a balcony in my castle, and landed on that white corridor where I found you. ’
That’s a lie, though, isn’t it?
The folio didn’t recount everything. My meeting with the witches in the woods … That wasn’t there. The Tragedie of Macbeth was much more focused on Macbeth himself.
‘So you think … you’re not real?’ Claret asks. Her hand traces my ribcage and it’s so real, oh it’s all so real I could die.
‘I did, uhm, think that. That I was just a figment Shakespeare put to paper. But then I found a name in his study, Gruoch Macbethad. And when I cornered him, he explained he based his story on real people, who existed long before his time.’
Claret nods, an impressive feat given that her head is currently occupied with nuzzling my neck, heading down to my chest, her sharp nose carving a path of fire on my skin, scalding even over my dress. ‘So you wanted to see her for yourself. If she’s more you than you.’
Her head is almost at my waist, her hands are snaking up my thighs, and oh my God what’s happening?
‘Don’t worry,’ Claret whispers on my upper thigh and my lips shape a silent oh.
‘He left. He can’t see us right now. I can hear him saddling the horses.
We have a little time. Tell me, does this feel like something else composed for you?
Something you’re not choosing?’ Amber eyes flash me a wicked stare before they disappear.
Her head sinks down on me, her lips, her tongue, her fingers, entering and claiming and lapping and opening and shaping and oh!
I can feel it, I can so feel it, a new chapter of my life being carved across my skin, every word setting me on wondrous fire as Claret rewrites me, as my love rewrites me from the inside out.
No man could have ever written this.