"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.