More applause as Lope, who felt as if he were dreaming himself, came out onto the stage and bowed to the audience-especially to the central gallery, where Isabella and Albert of England sat. How had Catalina learned his full name? No time to wonder about that now; Queen Isabella was calling, "Well done, Senor de Vega. You are a very clever fellow." Lope bowed again. Isabella tossed him a small leather purse. He caught it out of the air. It was heavy, heavy enough to be stuffed with gold. He bowed once more, this time almost double. Dazedly, he followed the company offstage.
Back in the tiring room, he went over to Catalina IbaA±ez and said, "How can I thank you for calling me out there?"
Her eyes were as warm with promise as an early summer morning. "If you're as clever as Queen Isabella says, SeA±or de Vega, I'm sure you'll think of something," she purred. Only later did he wonder whether she was really looking at him or at the purse he'd just got.
Sam King came up to Shakespeare in the parlor of the lodgings they shared. A little shyly, he said,
"I have somewhat for you, Master Will." He held out his hand and gave Shakespeare three pennies-two stamped with the visages of Isabella and Albert, the third an older coin of Elizabeth's.
"Gramercy," Shakespeare said in surprise. Up till now, King hadn't had enough money for himself, let alone to pay back anyone else. Shakespeare had almost forgotten the threepence he'd given the younger man for a supper, and certainly hadn't expected to see it again.
But, a touch of pride in his voice, King said, "I pay what I owe, I do."
"Right glad am I to hear't," Shakespeare answered. "You've found work, then?"
"You might say so." But King's nod seemed intended to convince himself at least as much as to convince Shakespeare. "Ay, sir, you might say so."
"And what manner of work is't, pray tell?"
No sooner were the words out of his mouth than Shakespeare wished he had them back. Had Sam King landed an apprenticeship with a carpenter or a bricklayer, he would have shouted the news to the skies, and would have deserved to. As things were. As things were, he turned red. "I am. stalled to the rogue," he replied at last.
"Are you?" Shakespeare tried to sound happy for the man who slept in the same room as he did. For someone on his own and hungry in London, even being formally initiated as a beggar had to seem a step up. Carefully, the poet went on, "God grant men be generous to you."
He wondered how long they would stay generous. King was young and healthy, even if on the scrawny side. A beggar with one leg or a missing eye or some other injury or ailment that inspired pity might have a better chance at pennies and ha'pennies and farthings. But King smiled and said, "There are all manner of cheats to pry the bite from a gentry cove, or from your plain cuffin, too. I've a cleym, now, fit to make a man spew an he see it."
"Have you indeed?" Shakespeare wasn't surprised to hear that. He'd known other beggars who used false sores to get money from those who saw them.
"Ay, sir," Sam King said. "And the moe I learn the art, the better the living I shall have of it." Yes, he might almost have been speaking of carpentry or bricklaying.
"May it be so," Shakespeare said, as politely as he could. He wished the other man would go away. He gave beggars coins now and again, and did not care to think of them as frauds.
King, though, bubbled with enthusiasm for his new trade. "I take crowfoot, spearwort, and salt, and, bruising these together, I lay them upon the place of the body I wish to make sore," he said, grinning.
"The skin by this means being fretted, I first clap a linen cloth, till it stick fast, which plucked off, the raw flesh hath ratsbane thrown upon it, to make it look ugly; and then cast over that a cloth, which is always bloody and filthy."
Shakespeare's stomach lurched, as it might have in a small boat on rough water. Fascinated in spite of himself, he asked, "But doth your flesh not from such rude usage take true hurt?"
"Nay, nay." Sam King shook his head. "I do't so often, that in the end I feel no pain, neither desire I to have it healed, but I will travel with my great cleym from market to market, being able by my maunding to get quite five shillings in a week, in money and in corn."
"No wonder you could repay me, then," Shakespeare remarked. Five shillings a week wouldn't make a man rich, but he wouldn't starve on such earnings, either.
"No wonder at all," King agreed happily. "I company with two or three other artificial palliards, and we sing out boldly, thus. " His voice rose to a shrill, piercing whine: "Ah, the worship of God look out with your merciful eyne! One pitiful look upon sore, lame, grieved, impotent people, sore troubled with the grievous disease, and we have no rest day nor night by the canker and worm, that continually eateth the flesh from the bone! For the worship of God, one cross of your small silver, to buy us salve and ointment, to ease the poor wretched body, that never taketh rest; and God reward you for it in heaven!"
Jane Kendall hurried into the parlor. "Begone! We want no beggars here," she began, and then checked herself. "Oh, 'tis you, Master King. Methought you some other tricksy wretch seeking to beguile silver by cleyms and other frauds. I'll not have such doings in this house. I know better."
She didn't mind if King begged elsewhere. She simply didn't want her lodgers tricked out of money that might otherwise assure her of her rent. Having dwelt in her house some little while, Shakespeare was certain of that. He said, "Fear not. He did but learn me his law, the which is indeed most quaint and bene."
"We'll say no more about it, then." The Widow Kendall heaved a sigh. "This place is not what it was-by my halidom, it is not. That I should have lodging here, all at the same time, a beggar and a witch and a poet. " She shook her head.
Shakespeare resented being lumped together with Sam King and Cicely Sellis. A moment's reflection, though, told him they might resent being lumped together with him. He said, "So that we pay what you require on the appointed day, where's your worry, Mistress Kendall?"
"So that you do, all's well," she answered. "But with such trades. Sweet Jesu, who ever heard of a rich poet?"
She could imagine a rich beggar. She could imagine a cunning woman with money. A poet? No.
Shakespeare was tempted to brag of the gold he'd got from Lord Burghley and Don Diego. He was tempted, for a good half a heartbeat. Then common sense prevailed. The best way to keep from being robbed or having his throat slit was not to let on he had anything worth stealing.
Mommet stalked into the parlor. The cat rubbed the side of its head against Shakespeare's ankle and began to purr. A little uncomfortably, Shakespeare stroked it. The cunning woman's cat-her familiar? — had seemed to like him from their first meeting. What would an inquisitor on the trail of witchcraft make of that? Nothing good, Shakespeare was sure.
Sam King said, "Mistress Kendall, may I take a mug of your fine ale?" At her nod, King hurried into the kitchen. When he came back with the mug, mischief lit his face. He squatted by Mommet and poured out a little puddle on the floor.
The Widow Kendall's voice rose in sharp indignation: "Here, now! What do you do? Would you waste it?"
"By no means." King crooned, "Here, puss, puss, puss," to the animal. "Come on your ways-open your mouth-here is that which will give language to you, cat. Open your mouth!"
Mommet sniffed at the ale slowly soaking into the rammed-earth floor. The cat's head bent. Ever so delicately, it lapped at the puddle. Then it looked up. It eyes caught the firelight from the hearth and glowed green.
"What game play you at?"
Sam King started violently and made the sign of the cross. Shakespeare jerked in surprise, too. But it wasn't the cat that had spoken. It was Cicely Sellis, standing in the doorway to her room, hands on hips, her face furious.