"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.
a€?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 hell.
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 gods
See nought but chaste and simple purity.
'Tis not high power that makes a place divine,
Nor that men from gods derive their line;
But sacred thoughts, in holy bosoms stor'd,
Make people noble, 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?"
Damn 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 passage 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 passion 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.