Ink and Steel

Will stepped down from a hired coach weary, bruised to the bone, sorely afflicted with chilblains, and nibbled by fleas. He’d fallen uneasily half asleep with his fingers protruding from under a carriage robe clutched to his chin. He worked them now, trying to bring sensation to cold-chapped skin. The coachman liberated his luggage and slid it down beside the wheels; the ground was too frozen for the trunk to be damaged by mud. The tired bay snorted. Will skirted the horse nervously, and caught one end handle on the trunk to drag it toward the cottage with its close-thatched roof. He closed his eyes, smelling kindled fire and baking bread, and stopped himself a half gesture before he rapped on his own front door. Instead he breathed deep, then pulled the latch-cord and shouldered the green-painted portal open, letting his trunk bump over the threshold.

“Annie?” She straightened and turned to him, aproned and dressed in good gray woolen, leather shoes on her stockinged feet against the winter chill of the rush-strewn floor, her befloured hands spread wide. Will. She stepped closer. Will kicked the door shut and bumped it with his heel to make certain of the latch. Leaving his trunk half blocking the threshold, he met her halfway between the door and the table and caught her wrists, holding her whitened hands back when he kissed her mouth. She giggled like a girl. He wiped flour off his cheek when he stepped away.

“I’ve a rental house for you to look at.”

“Annie, let a man get his boots off,” he protested, and she laughed again. “I’m famous, wife. Romeo and Juliet. Dost care?”

“I’ll read your plays,” she said stolidly, turning to wash her hands, when they bring you home again. He came and poured the water for her so she would not beflour the ewer, and watched her hands tumble over each other like courting birds.

“The bread smells wonderful.”

“Wonderful enough to wake the children, do you suppose?” She glanced at him sideways, drying her hands on her apron. “Still slugabed?” He smiled, looking up at the loft. “Did you tell them I was coming?”

“I …” She stopped. “I didn’t want to disappoint them.”

“Ah.” The sour taste was no more than a night spent in the Davenant’s Inn before resuming his coach seat to finish this journey.

He nudged his trunk out of the doorway, pushing up a thin ridge of rush stems. Annie’s eyes were on him, kinder than he had any right to.

“Do you think I can get Hamnet down here over my shoulder before he wakes, the way I used to?”

“He’s bigger than you remember Will! Be careful… ”.

But he was already halfway up the ladder, and turned to press a silencing finger to his lips. “At least let me try.”

Annie laced her fingers behind her backside, half turned her head, and smiled and sighed as if they were a single gesture. But she held her tongue, and Will resumed his climb. Soft morning sunlight from a casement under the eave filled the loft, the air cold enough that Will’s breath steamed in coils. Will cat-footed to bedsteads ranged side by side along the left-hand wall; the wider held a pair of sweetly snoring lumps and the narrower only one. He paused, a few steps away from the children, and breathed their rich, sleeping scent. It made him lightheaded, as if he were breathing in the pale gold winter sunshine, filled up until he inflated, buoyed, floating forward to unearth his son from quilts and comforters and the featherbed covering the rustling straw-filled tick.

Hamnet slept with his thumb in his mouth, knees drawn up, hips tucked forward, body turned fully at the waist so that his opposite shoulder was in contact with the featherbed. Golden eyelashes fluttered against the boy’s rosy cheeks as Will moved to block the square of sunlight dappling his face, dust motes flitting between them like atomies.

Will crouched, dislodging Hamnet’s thumb gently, and with both hands picked up his sleeping son. He flopped the boy’s slack warm arms around his neck and cradled him close. He squatted on the edge of the girls bed, then, and leaned Hamnet’s still-towheaded curls against his shoulder as he tugged the coverlet down. Susanna lay with her arms widespread as if embracing the morning, Judith’s brown head resting on the soft part of her shoulder. The younger girl coiled around a pillow possessively, her braid snaking across her sister’s breast.

Susanna’s eyes flicked open when the light brushed her face, but Judith cuddled closer to her pillow and mumbled. And then Susanna’s hazel eyes went wide, and as Will saw her draw breath to shriek in delight he put his finger to his lips. She choked on it, clapped her hand over her mouth, and giggled. Will pointed to the ladder and to Judith, and Susanna nodded and reached to shake her sister awake.

He actually got Hamnet halfway down to Anne’s stifled laughter before the boy squirmed awake and blinked sleepily through the tangled blond curls. And then Hamnet did squeal, and cling, while the girls laughed over the edge of the loft.