Ruled Britannia (20 page)

“I pray pardon, sir,” King said. “I'm yet unused to the confines of this room.” He spoke with a broad Midlands accent. Shakespeare had sounded much the same when he first came to London, but, wanting to take the stage, had had to learn in a hurry to sound like a Londoner born.

“By God, you're used to the confines of my toe, and to flatten it to flatter your fancy,” Shakespeare grumbled. But then he sighed. “I own there's no help for't. And had the Widow Kendall taken in another lodger male in place of this Cicely Sellis, he'd trample me in your place.”

“Ay, belike,” Sam King said. “ 'Tis monstrous strange Mistress Cicely should hire a whole room to herself of the old hag. 'Tis monstrous dear, too.” His belly rumbled. “Marry, but I'm hungry,” he muttered, more to himself than to Shakespeare. Whatever he did in the city—some of this and a little of that, Shakespeare gathered—it got him little money. His face had a pinched, pale look, and his clothes hung loosely on him.

The take at the Theatre had been good. As Christmas neared, people wanted to be gay. Shakespeare had gold not only from Lord Burghley but from the Spaniards as well. He took out three pennies and handed them to Sam King. “Here. Get yourself to an ordinary and eat your fill tonight.”

To his amazement, King began to blubber. “God bless you, sir. Oh, God bless you,” he said. “I tread on you, and then you give me good for evil, as our Lord says a man ought to do.” His scrawny fingers closed over the coins. “I'll pay you back, sir. Marry, I will.”

“An't please you. An you can without pinching,” Shakespeare said. “An it be otherwise . . .” He shrugged. Threepence meant less to him than to Sam King. The skinny young man blew his nose on the fingers of the hand that wasn't holding the money, wiped them on his shabby doublet, and hurried out of the lodging house.

Shakespeare got out his writing tools and took them to the ordinary he favored. He was relieved not to find his fellow lodger there; King would have insisted on chattering at him when he wanted to work.
Love's Labour's Won
was almost done. He needed to finish it as fast as he could, too. For one thing, the company's patience was wearing thin. For another, he didn't know how long he had till Philip of Spain died. He would need to have both his special commissions ready by then, whichever one actually saw the light of day.

Kate the serving woman came up to him. “God give you good even, Master Will,” she said. “The threepenny is barley porridge with boiled
beef.” He nodded. She went on, “There's lambswool, if you'd liefer have it than the common brewing.”

“I would, and I thank you for't,” Shakespeare answered. On a chilly December evening, warm spiced beer would go down well.

Maybe the lambswool helped his thoughts flow freely. Whatever the cause, he sat and wrote till he was the last man left in the ordinary. Only when his candle flame began to leap and gutter as the candle neared extinction did he reluctantly pick up his papers and quills and ink and go back to the lodging house.

“It's long past curfew, Master Shakespeare,” Jane Kendall said severely when he came in. “I was afeard for you.”

“Here I am.” Shakespeare didn't want to talk to her. He threw a pine log on the hearth. Before long, it flared up hot and bright. The Widow Kendall sent him a reproachful stare. He never noticed it. He sat down at the table in front of the fire to write a little more while the log gave such fine light. His landlady threw her hands in the air and stalked off to bed.

He hardly noticed her go. It was one of those magical evenings where nothing stood between his mind and the sheet of paper in front of him. He'd been writing for some time—how long by the clock, he couldn't have said, but twenty-five or thirty lines' worth, with scarcely a blotted word—before realizing he wasn't alone in the room. The new lodger, Cicely Sellis, stood in the doorway watching him work.

“Give you good den,” she said when he looked up. “I misliked troubling you, your pen scratching along so fast.”

“I do thank you for the courtesy,” Shakespeare answered. “There are those—too many of 'em, too—will break into a writing man's thoughts for no more reason than to see him stop and scuff the ground, wondering what he meant next to say.”

“Some folk, able themselves to shape naught of beauty, are fain to mar another's work, for that they may not find themselves outdone. An you'd back to't, make as though I am not here. You'll offend me not.” Cicely Sellis was five or ten years older than Shakespeare. She'd probably been a striking woman till smallpox scarred her face; beneath the flawed skin, her bones were very fine. She wore no ring. Shakespeare didn't know whether she was spinster or widow.

“Again, my thanks,” he said. When he stretched, something crunched in his back. It felt good. He twisted, hoping he could get more relief. He noticed his hand was cramped, and wondered how long he'd
been writing all told. “I can pause here. I have the way now, and shall not wander from it when I resume.”

“Right glad I am to hear you say so.” A gray tabby wandered in after Cicely Sellis. It stropped itself against her ankles. She bent and scratched it behind the ears. It began to buzz. It wasn't a big cat, but purred very loudly. “There, Mommet, there,” she murmured. When she looked up again, she asked, “You'll soon have finished the play, Master Shakespeare?”

“God willing, yes,” he answered.

“I hope to see't,” she told him. “I've seen some others of yours, and they liked me well. Can I get free, I'll pay my penny again.”

“No poet can hope for higher praise,” he said, which won a smile from her. He went on, “Have you a hard master, then, one who keeps you at it every minute?”

She nodded and pointed to her chest. “I do, sir, the hardest: mine own self.” She stroked the cat again. It purred even louder. Its eyes were green. So were hers. She studied him. “If you would have . . . questions answered, haply I could help you.”

“Ah.” He'd wondered what she did. No wonder she'd wanted a room all to herself. “You are a cunning woman, then?” He wouldn't say
witch
, even if they amounted to the same thing.

And Cicely Sellis, sensibly, wouldn't answer straight out. “Marry, Master Shakespeare, in this world of men a woman needs must be cunning, mustn't she, if she's to make her way? Now I hear something, now I say something, and the world turns round.” She nodded almost defiantly, as if to say,
Make of that what you will
.

Shakespeare didn't know what to make of it. In London as elsewhere in England, elsewhere all through Christendom, witches, or people claiming to be witches, were a fact of life. They did at least as much good for the sick as fancy physicians, as far as he could tell. Did they take their power from Satan? People said they did. Now here before him stood one of the breed. He could ask her himself, if he had the nerve.

He didn't.

“I am . . . content with my lot,” he said. If she were truly a witch, she would see he was lying.

He couldn't tell whether she did or not. She gave him half a curtsy. Her eyes glinted, as the cat Mommet's might have done. “No small thing have you said there, nor no common thing, neither,” she replied at last. “The richest man in the world, be he never so healthy, be he wed to a
young and beautiful wife who loveth him past all reason, hath he contentment? Not likely! He will hunger for more gold, or for more strength of body, or for some other wench besides the one he hath, or for all those things together. Is't not so, Master Shakespeare?”

“Before God, Mistress Sellis, I think you speak sooth,” Shakespeare answered.

She stroked Mommet again. He was an uncommonly good-natured cat; as soon as she touched him, his purr boomed out, filling the room. She said, “I have once or twice before been styled soothsayer. I do not say I am such, mind, but I have been so styled.”

Shakespeare nodded. “I believe it. If it be so, belike you make a good one.” He intended no flattery, but meant every word. What she'd said about a rich man's restless desire for
more
showed she could see a long way into the human heart. That had to be as important for a soothsayer as for a poet crafting plays.

She studied him again. He had rarely known such a measuring glance from a woman—or, indeed, from a man. Marlowe's gaze came close, but it always held an undercurrent of mockery absent from her expression. Her eyes
did
shine like a cat's. He wondered what trick of witchcraft made them do that. Of nights, a cat's eyes, or a dog's, gave back torchlight. A man's eyes, or a woman's, did not. But Cicely Sellis' did.

Mommet suddenly stopped purring. His fur puffed out till he looked twice his proper size. He hissed like a snake. A freezing draught blew under the door, making the hair on Shakespeare's arms prickle up, too, and sending a swarm of bright sparks up the chimney as the flames flared.

In a deep, slow voice not quite her own, Cicely Sellis said, “Beware the man who brings good news, and he who knows less than he seems.”

“What?” Shakespeare said.

The one word might have broken the spell, if spell there was. The cat's fur smoothed down on his back. He sprawled on his side, licked his belly and privates, and began to purr once more. The fire eased. And the cunning woman, her eyes merely human eyes again, frowned a little and asked, “Said you somewhat to me?”

“I did.” Shakespeare went on to repeat, as best he could, what she'd told him.

Her frown deepened. “
I
said that?” she asked.

“On my oath, Mistress Sellis, you did.” Shakespeare crossed himself to show he meant it.

Witches were supposed to fear the sign of the cross. Cicely Sellis showed no such fear. She only shrugged her shoulders and laughed a nervous-sounding laugh. “I will believe you, sir, for that you have no cause to lie to me thus. But as for the words . . .” She shook her head. “I recollect 'em not.”

“No?” Shakespeare pressed it a little. Cicely Sellis shook her head again and pressed a hand to one temple, as if she knew pain there. Being a player himself, Shakespeare knew acting. As best he could judge, the cunning woman was sincere in her denial. Bemused, he tugged at his little chin beard. “ 'Tis passing strange, that.”

“So it is.” Mistress Sellis rubbed the side of her head once more. She yawned. “Your pardon, but I'm fordone. Mommet, come.” The cat followed her into the room she'd hired from Widow Kendall as obediently as if it were a dog.

Was
it a cat? Or was it the cunning woman's—the witch's—familiar spirit? Shakespeare had trouble imagining a familiar spirit, a demon surely reeking of brimstone, purring with such content as it lay on the floor.
But then, what know you of demons?
the poet asked himself.
As little as may be, and wish it were less
.

He tried to write a bit more. That bothered him less than it would have the day before. He yawned, too. He could go to bed with a clear conscience now. He knew where
Love's Labour's Won
was going, and knew he
would
finish it in a day or two. Then on to
King Philip
, and to . . . the other play.

His bedroom was dark when he went in. Jack Street's snores made the chamber hideous. Shakespeare knew he himself would have no trouble sleeping despite the racket; he'd had time to get used to it. How—indeed, whether—Sam King could manage was a different question.

Shakespeare didn't bother with a candle when he stowed his writing tools in the chest by his bed. He'd dealt with the lock so often in darkness, he might almost have been a blind craftsman whose fingers saw as well as most men's eyes. The click of the key in the lock made Street the snoring glazier mumble and turn over, though how he heard that click through his own thunderstorm was beyond Shakespeare. The poet sighed—quietly—and yawned again.

As he slipped the bottle of ink back into the chest, his fingers brushed a new and hence unfamiliar bulk: the translation of the
Annals
he'd picked up in front of St. Paul's. “ 'Sdeath,” he whispered: a curse
that was at the same time at least half a prayer. The translation itself was innocent. But if anyone thought to search for it, his death was likely whether it were found or not. That would mean Lord Burghley's plot was betrayed.

He shut the chest, locked it, and pulled off his boots. The wooden bed frame and its leather straps creaked as he lay down and burrowed under the covers. Despite yet another yawn, sleep would not come. His mind spun faster than the spinning hand of a clock.
How can Burghley's plan hope to escape betrayal? There's surely far more to't than one poor poet and a play that may never been seen. Can he do so much with so many under the Spaniards' very noses without their suspecting? 'Tis false we English breed no traitors. Would 'twere true, but these past nine years have proved otherwise
.

What
did
Burghley purpose? Shakespeare shook his head.
Ignorance, here, is bliss. What I know not, no Spaniard can rip from me
. He wished he didn't know it was tied to word of Philip's death. But the English nobleman had had to tell him that. He needed some notion of how long he had to write the play and to train the actors of his company to perform it.