But her smile disappeared when Shakespeare put a fresh chunk of wood on the fire. He'd known it would, and had hoped to sweeten her beforehand. No such luck. "Master Will!" she said, her voice sharp with annoyance. "With the winter so hard, have you any notion how dear wood's got?"

"In sooth, my lady, you'd have set it there yourself ere long," Shakespeare said, as soothingly as he could.

"You'd be wood to spare wood, would you not?" He smiled, both to sweeten her further and because his wordplay pleased him.

It failed to please her, for she failed to notice it. "Daft, he calls me," she said to no one in particular--perhaps she was letting G.o.d know of his sins. "Bought he the wood he spares not? Marry, he did not. Cared he what it cost? Marry, not that, either. But called he me wood? Marry, he did. He'll drive me to frenzy thus, to frenzy and to bed." On that anticlimactic note, she left the parlor.

Shakespeare pushed a table and a stool up close to the fire. He took out the latest sheet of paper for Boudicca--no others--and set to work. A couple of minutes later, he yawned. Over the years, he'd got used to writing plays in odd moments s.n.a.t.c.hed from other work and sleep.Something brushed against his ankle. Before he could start, the cat said, "Meow."

"Good den, Mommet." Shakespeare scratched the gray tabby behind the ears and stroked its back.

Mommet purred ecstatically. When Shakespeare stopped stroking the cat so he could write, it sat up on its hind legs and tapped his shin with a front paw, as if to say, Why don't you go on?

He glanced down at it, a trifle uneasily. Would a common cat sit so? he wondered. Or hath this beast more wit than a common cat? Still purring, the animal twisted into an improbable pose and began licking its private parts and a.n.u.s. Shakespeare laughed. Would a familiar do anything so undignified?

Cicely Sellis appeared in the doorway. "G.o.d give you good even, Master Shakespeare," she said--she certainly had no trouble p.r.o.nouncing the name of the Lord, as witches were said to do. "Have you seen--? Ah, there he is. Mommet!"

The cat went on licking itself as Shakespeare answered, "And you, Mistress Sellis?"

She snapped her fingers and cooed. Mommet kept ignoring her. With a small, rueful shrug, she smiled at Shakespeare. "He does as he would, not as I would."

"Care killed a cat, or so they say," the poet replied.

Laughing, the cunning woman said, "If he die of care, he'll live forever. But how is it with you? Did he disturb you from your work? Do I?"

"No, and no," Shakespeare said, the first no truthful, the second polite. "I am well enough. How is't with yourself?"

"Well enough, as you say," Cicely Sellis answered. "Truly, I have been pleased to make your acquaintance, for your name I hear on everyone's lips."

"You ken my creditors, then?" Shakespeare said. "Better they should come to you for their fortunes than to me."

"A thing I had not heard was that you were in debt." She paused, then sent him a severe look. "Oh. You quibble on 'fortune.' "

"Had I one, my lady, I should not quibble on't."

She snorted. That made the cat look up from grooming itself. She snapped her fingers again. The cat rose to its feet, stretched, purred--and rubbed up against Shakespeare once more. "Vile, fickle beast!" Cicely Sellis said in mock fury.

Shakespeare reached down and stroked the cat. It began to purr even louder. "Ay, there's treason in 'em, in their very blood," he said.

"How, then, differ they from men?" she asked.

That put him back on uncomfortable ground--all the more so, considering what he was writing. He stopped petting the gray tabby. It looked up at him and meowed. When he didn't start again, it walked over to its mistress. "And now you think I'll make much of you, eh?" she said as she picked it up. It purred. She laughed. "Belike you're right." She glanced over to Shakespeare. "Shall I bid you good night?"

"By no means," he answered, polite once more: polite and curious. "You'll think me vain, Mistress Sellis,but from whose lips hear you of me?"

Vanity had something to do with the question, but only so much; he wasn't Richard Burbage. But he might learn something useful, something that would help keep him alive. The more he knew, the better his chances. He was sure of that. He was also sure--unpleasantly sure--they weren't very good no matter how much he knew.

"From whose lips?" Cicely Sellis pursed her own before answering, "I'll not tell you that, not straight out.

Many who come to me would liefer not be known to resort to a cunning woman. There are those who'd call me witch."

"I believe it," Shakespeare said. What's in a name? he wondered. The English Inquisition could, no doubt, give him a detailed answer.

"Well you might," she said. "But believe also no day goes by when I hear not some phrase of yours, repeated by one who likes the sound, likes the sense, and knows not, nor cares, whence it cometh.

'Who ever loved that loved not at first sight?' or--"

Shakespeare laughed. "Your pardon, I pray you, but that is not mine, and Kit Marlowe would wax wroth did I claim it."

"Oh." She laughed, too. "It's I who must cry pardon, for speaking of your words and speaking forth another's. What am I then but a curst unfaithful jade, like unto mine own cat? I speak sooth even so."

"You do me too much honor," Shakespeare said.

"I do you honor, certes, but too much? Give me leave to doubt it. Why, I should not be surprised to hear the dons admiring your plays."

He looked down at what he'd just written. Queen Boudicca, who had been flogged by the Roman occupiers of Britannia, and whose daughters had been violated, was urging the Iceni to revolt, saying,

"But mercy and love are sins in Rome and h.e.l.l.

If Rome be earthly, why should any knee With bending adoration worship her?

She's vicious; and, your partial selves confess, Aspires to the height of all impiety; Therefore 'tis fitter I should reverence The thatched houses where the Britons dwell In careless mirth; where the blest household G.o.ds See nought but chaste and simple purity.

'Tis not high power that makes a place divine, Nor that men from G.o.ds derive their line;But sacred thoughts, in holy bosoms stor'd, Make people n.o.ble, and the place ador'd."

What would the dons say if they heard those lines? What will the dons say when they hear those lines? He laughed. He couldn't help himself. Give me leave to doubt they will admire them.

Cicely Sellis misunderstood the reason for his mirth, if mirth it was. She sounded angry as she said, "If you credit yourself not, who will credit you in your despite?"

"Not the dons, methinks," he answered.

"But have I not seen 'em 'mongst the groundlings?" she returned. "And have I not seen you yourself in converse earnest with 'em? Come they to the Theatre for that they may dispraise you?"

d.a.m.n you, Lieutenant de Vega, Shakespeare thought, not for the first time. Not only did the man threaten to discover his treason whenever he appeared, but now he'd just cost him an argument.

Shakespeare's fury at the Spaniard was all the greater for being so completely irrational.

When he did not respond, the cunning woman smiled a smile that told him she knew she'd won. She said, "When the dons and their women come to see me, shall I ask 'em how they think on you?"

"The dons . . . come to see you, Mistress Sellis?" Shakespeare said slowly.

"In good sooth, they do," she answered. "Why should they not? Be they not men like other men? Have they not fears like other men? Sicknesses like other men? Fear not their doxies they are with child, or poxed, or both at once? Ay, they see me. Some o' the dons'd liefer go to the swarthy wandering Egyptians, whom in their own land they have also, but they see me."

"Very well. I believe't. An it please you, though, I would not have my name in your mouth, no, nor in the Spaniards' ears neither."

Shakespeare thought he spoke quietly, calmly. But Mommet's fur puffed up along his back. The cat's eyes, reflecting the firelight, flared like torches as it hissed and spat. By the way it stood between Shakespeare and its mistress, it might have been a watchdog defending its home.

"Easy, my poppet, my chick, easy." Cicely Sellis bent and stroked the cat. Little by little, its fur settled.

Once it began to purr once more, she looked up at Shakespeare. "Fear not. It shall be as you desire."

"For which I thank you."

"I'll leave you to't, then," she said, scooping Mommet up into her arms. "Good night and good fortune."

She spoke as if she could bestow the latter. Shakespeare wished someone could. He would gladly take it wherever it came from.

VII.

LOPE DE VEGA looked up from the paper. "I pray you, forgive me, Master Shakespeare," he said, "but your character is not easy for one unaccustomed to it."

"You are not the first to tell me so," the English poet answered, "and I thus conclude the stricture holds some truth."

They sat on the edge of the stage in the Theatre, legs dangling down towards the dirt where the groundlings would stand. Behind them, swords clashed as players practiced their moves for the afternoon's show. Looking over his shoulder, Lope could tell at a glance which of them had used a blade in earnest and which only strutted on the stage.

But that was not his worry. The nearly illegible words on the sheet in his left hand were. He pointed to one pa.s.sage that had, once he'd deciphered it, particularly pleased him. "This is your heretic Queen Elizabeth, speaking to his Most Catholic Majesty's commander as she goes to the Tower?"

Shakespeare nodded. "Just so."

"It hath the ring of truth," Lope said, and began to read:

" 'Stay, Spanish brethren! Gracious conqueror, Victorious Parma, rue the tears I shed, A mother's tears in pa.s.sion for her land: And if thy Spain were ever dear to thee, O! think England to be as dear to me.

Sufficeth not that I am brought hither To beautify thy triumphs and thy might, Captive to thee and to thy Spanish yoke, But must my folk be slaughter'd in the streets, For valiant doings in their country's cause?

O! if to fight for lord and commonweal Were piety in thine, it is in these.' "

"Will it serve?" Shakespeare asked anxiously.

"Most excellent well," Lope replied at once. "It is, in sooth, a fine touch, her pleading for mercy thus.

How came you to shape it so?"

"I bethought me of what she might tell King Philip himself, did he come to London, then made her speak to his general those same words," Shakespeare said.

"Ah." Sitting, Lope couldn't bow, but did take off his hat and incline his head to show how much theanswer pleased him. "Most clever. And then the Duke of Parma's reply is perfect--perfect, I tell you." He read again:

" 'At mine uncle's bidding, I spare your life, For mercy is above this sceptr'd sway: 'Tis mighty in the mightiest; it becomes The throned monarch better than his crown; It is enthroned in the hearts of kings, And blesseth him that gives and him that takes.' "

"If it please you, I am content," the Englishman murmured.

"Please me? You are too modest, sir!" Lope cried. While Shakespeare--modestly--shook his head, the Spaniard went on, "Would King Philip might read these wondrous words you write in his behalf. As I live, he'd praise 'em. Know you the Escorial, outside Madrid?"

"I have heard of't," Shakespeare said.

" 'Twill be his Most Catholic Majesty's monument forevermore," Lope said. "And your King Philip, meseems, will live as long."

"May he have many years," Shakespeare said in a low voice. "May this play remain for years unstaged."

Lope crossed himself. "Yes, may it be so, though I fear me the day will come sooner than that." He tapped the sheet of paper with a fingernail. "I shall take back to my superiors a report most excellent of this."

"Gramercy," the Englishman told him.

"No, no, no." De Vega wagged a hand back and forth. " 'Tis I should thank you, se?or . Again, you prove yourself the poet Don Diego knew you to be."

Will Kemp sidled up to them. "What business have you put in for a clown?" he asked in a squeaky whine.

"It is a play on the death of a great king," Lope said coldly; he did not like Kemp.

"All the more reason for j.a.pes and jests," the clown said.

"You are mistaken," de Vega said, more coldly still.

To his surprise, Shakespeare stirred beside him. "No, Lieutenant, haply not," he said, and Lope felt betrayed. Shakespeare went on, "Sweeten the posset with some honey, and down it goes, and sinks deep. Without the same . . ." He shook his head.

"I have trouble believing this," Lope said."Then who's the fool?" Will Kemp said. He went on, " ''A was the first that ever bore arms.' " A sudden shift of voice for, " 'Why, he had none.' " Back to the original: " 'What? art a heathen? How dost thou understand the Scripture? The Scripture says, Adam digged; could he dig without arms? I'll put another question to thee. If thou answerest me not, confess thyself--' "

"Confess thyself a blockhead," Lope broke in. "What is this nonsense?"

Quietly, Shakespeare said, "It is from my Prince of Denmark, sir, the which you were kind enough to praise not long since."

Kemp bent and took Lope's head in both hands. The Spaniard tried to twist away, but could not; the clown was stronger than he looked. Solemnly--and, Lope realized after a moment, doing an excellent imitation of Richard Burbage--Kemp intoned, " 'Alas, poor Yorick. I knew him.' "--as if Lope's head were the skull of the dead clown in the play. " 'I knew him, Horatio; a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy. He hath borne me on his back a thousand times; and now, how abhorred in my imagination it is! Here hung those lips that I have kissed I know not how oft.' " He kissed Lope de Vega on the mouth and let him go.

Furious, Lope sprang to his feet. His rapier hissed free. "Wh.o.r.eson knave! Thou diest!" he roared.

"Hold!" Shakespeare said. "Give over! He made his point with words."

Kemp seemed too stupid to care whether he lived or died. Pointing to Lope, he jeered, "He hath no words, and so needs must make his with the sword." With a mocking bow, he added, "Fear no more kisses. I'm not so salt a rogue that you shall make a Bacon of me."

"All the contagions of the south light on you!" Lope said. But he did not thrust at the hateful clown.

He regretted his restraint a moment later, for Kemp bowed once more, and answered, "Why, here you are."