Ruled Britannia

XII

Lope De Vega and Cicely Sellis stood just outside the door to the cunning woman's room. As she set her hand on the latch, she said, "We are friends, mind you, Master de Vega, not lovers. I trust you'll recall as much when we go within, and seek not to paw me or do me other such discourtesies."

"God forbid it," Lope exclaimed, making the sign of the cross to show his sincerity. Then he let out a melodramatic sigh to show he wasn't so sincere as all that. She made a face at him. He winked and blew her a kiss, saying, "Teach not thy lips such scorn, for they were made for kissing, lady, not for such contempt. And my kissing is as full of sanctity as the touch of holy bread."

She rolled her eyes. "Love is merely a madness, and, I tell you, deserves as well a dark house and a whip as madmen do. Now-swear and swear true, or stay without my door."

"As you wish, so shall it be," Lope said solemnly. "This I swear." And if, once they were inside and alone together, she wished for something other than that he keep his distance, he would gladly oblige her. And if he could persuade her to wish for something other than that, why then, he would.

Something in Cicely Sellis' expression said she knew perfectly well what lay in his mind. That irked Lope; he didn't like women seeing through him. She is a cunning woman, after all, he reminded himself, and then, not for the first time, reminded himself of the other, shorter, name for a cunning woman: witch.

Some things he might try with other women he would perhaps be wise to forget with this one.

"I shall take you at your word," she said, and opened the door. "Enter, an't please you."

He did, curious not least to see what a witch's room was like. It seemed ordinary enough: bed, stool, chest of drawers with basin and pitcher atop it, undoubtedly a chamber pot under the bed. The only thing even slightly strange was a box half full of raw, uncombed wool. That puzzled Lope till Mommet stuck his head out of the box and mewed.

"A clever nest," the Spaniard said.

"It suits him." Cicely Sellis waved to the stool. "Sit you down." She herself perched on the edge of the bed.

He would rather have sat beside her, but he couldn't very well do that, not when she'd been so definite.

Mommet leaped from the box, paused to scratch behind an ear, and wandered over to sniff at his boots.

He stroked the cat. It purred, then snapped. He jerked his hand away. Mommet went right on purring.

"Faithless beast," he muttered.

"He is a cat," the cunning woman said. "From one moment to the next, he knows not what he'd have. Is he then so different from those who go on two legs?"

"Treason's in his blood," de Vega said.

"Is he then so different.?" Cicely Sellis didn't repeat all of her last question, only enough to make it plain.

In doing so, she gave Lope an opening. "Know you of any such?" he asked, keeping his tone as light and casual as he could. "For surely you must hear all manner of fearful and curious things."

"The confessional hath its secrets," she said. "No less my trade. Who'd speak to a cunning woman, knowing his words were broadcast to the general? No less than a priest, I hear of adulteries and fornications and cozenings and, as you say, all manner of proof Adam's get be a sinful lot."

A cunning woman, of course, lacked the immunity of a priest hearing confession. Lope didn't mention that. She had to know it only too well. And, while she'd mentioned several kinds of things she heard about, she hadn't said a word about treason. If he pressed her on it, he would make her suspicious.

Instead, he changed the subject, or seemed to: "How I envy you, lodging here cheek by jowl with Master Shakespeare. Hath he told you aforetime what his next play's to be?"

Cicely Sellis shook her head. "Nay, nor hath he spoke treason in my hearing, neither."

Lope's ears burned. He hadn't been so subtle there as he would have wished. If he acknowledged the hit, though, she would think him more interested in spying on her than interested in her. He was interested in spying on her, but that didn't mean he wasn't interested in her: on the contrary. "Right glad I am to know it, then," he said. "Ears so sweet as yours should hear no base, no gross, no disgusting thing."

She laughed. The cat sat up on its haunches like a begging dog, staring at her. "What should they hear, then?"

"Why, how beautiful thou art," he answered at once. "Thou dost teach the torches to burn bright-beauty too rich for use, for earth too dear."

That made her laugh again. "Said I not, we are friends? Say you so to all you hold in friendship?"

"I do not," Lope said. "But, whilst we are friends, I'd fain we were more. I own it. 'Twould curd my blood to say otherwise."

"You flatter me." Cicely Sellis drew out a sparkling glass trinket that hung on a chain around her neck.

She let the pendant swing back and forth a couple of times; it drew Lope's eye as a lodestone draws iron. Then, smiling to herself, she tucked it back under her blouse, into the shadowed vale between her breasts. His gaze followed it till it disappeared. Seeing that made her smile wider. "You'd say the like to any woman you found comely."

That held some truth, but only some. "I have seen comely women aplenty," he said. "I have loved comely women aplenty. And, having done it, I find loving 'em for comeliness' sake alone doth stale." He thought of Catalina IbaA±ez, and wished he hadn't. "I'd sooner love one who might love me in return for reasons as several and various as mine for loving her."

"I tell you yet again, we are not lovers," she said.

"I tell thee yet again, would we were!" Lope exclaimed. Being balked only made him burn hotter.

"You flatter me," Cicely Sellis said once more.

"Nay, for flattery is lies, whilst I am full of truth," Lope said.

"When this man swears that he is made of truth, I near believe him, though I know he lies," the cunning woman said, as if to an audience only she could see. Then her attention unmistakably swung back to Lope. "Said you the like to Catalina IbaA±ez? Said you the like to Lucy Watkins? Said you the like to Nell Lumley? To Martha Brock? To Maude Fuller, or ever you dove out her window?"

De Vega gaped. "How know you of her?" He was sure Shakespeare didn't, which meant Cicely Sellis couldn't have heard about that from him.

"I have my ways," she said. He crossed himself, thinking, Witch! She is a bruja after all. Affecting not to notice, she went on, "Her sister is my washerwoman, and hath been known to gossip."

"Oh." Lope felt foolish. Cicely Sellis always had, or said she had, some natural means of gaining her knowledge. Maybe she wasn't a witch. Maybe, on the other hand, she just did a good job of covering her tracks. Who could know for certain? De Vega knew he didn't. Every time he thought he was sure, more confusion followed.

"Are you answered?" she asked.

"I am," he said, more or less truthfully. Rather more to the point, his ardor was cooled. He realized he would not lie with Cicely Sellis today. "Peradventure I had best get hence," he murmured, hoping against hope she would ask him to stay.

But she didn't. She only gave him a brisk nod. "That were best, methinks. I am ever glad to see you, Master de Vega, and to talk with you. You are a man of parts. Not all those parts, though, would I take into me."

Had a woman ever said anything bawdier in turning him down? Most women who let him into their beds never said anything bawdier. Jolted, he bowed, muttered, "God give you good day, then," and hurried out of her room.

He intended to hurry out of the lodging-house, too, but he almost ran over William Shakespeare on the way out. Both men exclaimed in surprise. Shakespeare said, "I had not looked to meet you here, Master Lope."

"Mistress Sellis is a friend, as you know," Lope said.

"Indeed," Shakespeare answered. The word seemed to hang in the air. What lay behind it? Jealousy?

Had the English poet cast longing glances at Cicely Sellis, too? She'd given no sign of it. But what did that prove? He hadn't told her about his other lady friends, either-not that that mattered, for she knew about them anyhow. An edge in his voice, Shakespeare asked, "And what passed betwixt you twain?"

Thinking to reassure him, de Vega answered, "We spoke of many things, yourself not least amongst 'em."

If Shakespeare imagined the two of them talking, he wouldn't imagine them naked and entwined. They hadn't been, but imagination could prove more dangerous than fact, even in as normally unwarlike a man as Shakespeare.

But the Englishman remained pretty obviously unreassured. "How found my name its way into your mouths?" he asked, his voice harsh.

"Why, for your poesy-how else?" Lope said. "I told her how I envied her the chance to know your verses or ever anyone else may."

"That doth she not." Shakespeare's glower matched his tone. "None but mine own self hears even a line ere it go forth to Lord Westmorland's Men." He coughed, then spoke again with more self-control:

"Thieves skulk everywhere, e'en as is. Is't not the same in Spain?"

"There you speak sooth," de Vega admitted, "and be damned to them." He made as if to step towards a stool in the parlor, to sit down and chat a while. Shakespeare shifted to put himself between Lope and the stool. Taking the hint, Lope left the lodging-house. He is jealous of me, whether he'll admit it or not, he thought sadly. I hope it doesn't hurt our friendship. But he didn't hope so enough to want to keep from seeing Cicely Sellis again.

The Ghost IN Prince of Denmark wasn't the only one Shakespeare played. Crouched under the stage as the specter in Christopher Marlowe's Cambyses King of Persia, he peered out at the crowd through chinks and knotholes. Powdered chalk from his makeup and smoke that would rise with him through the trap door both tickled his nose; he hoped he wouldn't sneeze. The smoke made his eyes sting, too, but he couldn't rub them for fear of smearing the black greasepaint around them.

What would the groundlings do when-if-Lord Westmorland's Men put on Boudicca? He knew what Lord Burghley, Robert Cecil, and the other would-be rebels wanted the crowd to do on seeing a play about Britons oppressed by invaders from across the sea. Would the people give the plotters what they wanted?An they give not, God give mercy to us all, he thought gloomily.

He stiffened. There not ten feet away stood Lope de Vega, with Cicely Sellis beside him. She laughed at something the Spaniard said. What were they talking about? Shakespeare turned his head and set his ear to the chink through which he'd been looking, but couldn't separate their talk from the rest of the noise.

Finding Lope in his lodging-house had been a nasty surprise. If he'd still been working on Boudicca.

He shuddered and shook, as if the sweating sickness had seized him.

Still shaking, he moved to another chink a few feet away. A moment later, he stiffened into immobility so thorough and profound, a glance from a cockatrice might have turned him to stone. There stood Marlowe. He remained clean-shaven and close-cropped, but he also remained himself. He wasn't very far from Lope; he wasn't very far at all. Would the don know him despite his altered seeming? If he shouted something like any groundling who'd poured down too much beer, would de Vega know his voice?

Shog off! Shakespeare thought at him, as urgently as he could. Get hence! Aroint thee! Avaunt! But Marlowe, of course, didn't move. He stood there as if no one had ever wanted to hang him for sodomizing boys. When a man with a tray of sausages pushed his way through the crowd, Marlowe bought from him and munched away like any tanner or stockfish-seller or dyer.

By then, Shakespeare wished he'd never started looking at the crowd in the first place. And so, when he spied Walter Strawberry a little to Marlowe's left, he didn't panic, as he might have otherwise. He'd already sunk down towards despair. The constable couldn't send him there, not when he'd got there on his own.

Performing in the play itself came as a great relief. While he trod the boards, he didn't have to-he couldn't-think about anything else. Hearing people gasp at his first appearance, hearing a woman up in the galleries let out half a shriek, assured him he still played a specter better than anyone else. He only wished he had more lines, the better to keep himself distracted.

Aye, I make me a passing fine ghost, he thought as he crouched under the stage again, awaiting his next scene. Shall I make me a ghost in sooth ere this coil unravel to the fullest? That seemed altogether too likely.

He came out on stage for his bows after Cambyses King of Persia ended, still in ghost makeup and turban. He saw de Vega applauding (and Cicely Sellis with him). He saw Marlowe applauding, too, which gave him an odd prick of pleasure. He even saw dour Walter Strawberry applauding. But the only thing that stuck in his mind was, I go well acclaimed to my doom.

Back in the tiring room, he accepted congratulations with half an ear. As it always did in a play with a ghost, the chore of getting off his unusually elaborate makeup gave him an excuse for not paying too much attention to people who came up to him. He could always soap and splash and scrub and say,

"Gramercy," without really worrying about what they were trying to tell him. Today of all days, that suited him well. He wanted to escape from the Theatre-which was just how he thought of it-as fast as he could.

He said hello to Lope, and to the cunning woman on his arm. Do they lie together? he wondered. By the way they spoke and touched and looked at each other, he didn't think so, but they were both, in a way, players, and so likely better at dissembling than most. That made him wonder what else Lope might be concealing. Did the Spaniard know of Boudicca? Was he biding his time, waiting to scoop up all the plotters when the time was ripe?

There's a question I'd give much to ask. But Shakespeare had to dissemble, too. He had to dissemble, and to pray no one betrayed him before the day, whenever that day should come. And he had to pray the rising that would come on and after the day succeeded, for its failure likewise doomed him and all of Lord Westmorland's Men unless they could flee abroad ahead of Spanish-and English-vengeance.

He kept looking around the tiring room for Christopher Marlowe, especially after the company had given one of the other poet's plays. Kit had had the chance to flee abroad ahead of Spanish vengeance. He'd had it, and he hadn't taken it. Zany, Shakespeare thought. Marlowe did seem to have the sense to stay away from this chamber, where his disguise could not hope to hold up.

Shakespeare was about to slip out of the tiring room himself, out of the tiring room and out of the Theatre, when Walter Strawberry pushed his way towards him through the crowd. "Good day to you, Master Shakespeare," the constable boomed. "Good day."

"And the same to you, sir," Shakespeare answered.

"Your performance this day was ghastly, passing ghastly indeed," Strawberry said.

By his smile, that was evidently intended for praise. Shakespeare dipped his head in what he hoped would pass for modesty. "I thank you for your gracious kindness," he murmured. He didn't ask Strawberry what he wanted. If he didn't ask, maybe the constable would prove not to have wanted anything and leave him alone.

Forlorn hope. Strawberry planted his wide frame in front of Shakespeare and said, "Know you, in his last hours under this earth, Matt Quinn spake traitorously? It be so, a certain witness hath demurred to me."

"I knew this not, sir," Shakespeare lied, and did his best to spread confusion wherever he could: "But if he were a traitor, then belike he who slew him loved his country."

"Think you so, eh?" Constable Strawberry said. "Well, I have my suppositions on that. Ay, some suppositious coves yet run free, a murtherer's blood adrip from their fingers."

"Surely it were the blood of them that were murthered," Shakespeare said.

"The which is what I said, not so?"

"God forbid I should quarrel with your honor."

"God forbid it? God forbid it indeed! For I tell you, sir, them as quarrel with me have cause to beget it afterwards," the constable declared.

"I doubt not you speak sooth," Shakespeare said soberly.

"Mark it well, then," the constable said, "for the day of beckoning draws nigh."

"I shall keep your words ever within my mind." Shakespeare hesitated, then asked, "What sort of treason spake this Matthew Quinn?"

"Vile, unlawful treason: most vile. Know you another sort?"

"Might you make yourself more clear, more plain?"

"Why, sir, I aim to be as clear as the nose on my face, as plain as a peacock," Strawberry said. "And so I shall exculpate more upon this matter. The said Quinn did speak insultingly on the King of Spain, dislikening him to a common bawd."

"A bawd?" Shakespeare said, frowning.

Walter Strawberry nodded. "The very same, sir: a bawd which hath two debauched daughters. An this be not treason, what name shall you give it?"

Shakespeare didn't answer right away; he was trying to make the pieces fit together. And then, with sudden, frightening ease, he did. Whoever had given Strawberry the story must have misheard bawd for Boudicca, substituting a familiar word for the unfamiliar name. And the Queen of the Iceni had had two daughters the Romans had ravished. A good thing whatever witness the constable-and the Spaniards? — had found seemed to know nothing of Roman history, or he would have given a clearer picture of Matt Quinn's folly. From the report that had come back to the Theatre through Will Kemp, Quinn had said far more than Walter Strawberry knew.

"Be this not treason?" Strawberry repeated. "If it be not treason, what name would you give it? Would you call it plum pudding?"

"Treason indeed. I'd not deny it," Shakespeare said. "Haply his end came at the hand of some bold soul whose overflowing choler would not suffer him to hear good King Philip reviled so." Again, he did his best to lead the constable away from the true trail.

And, again, he did not get so far as he would have wanted. Constable Strawberry said, "This Ingram Frizer I have aforementioned is villain enough and to spare for murther and felonious absconding with his periwig both. By my halidom, I do believe him to be the perpetuator against Matthew Quinn."

Since Shakespeare believed the same thing, he had to tread with the greatest of care. He said, "Your honor will know better than I, for I have not met the gentleman you name."

"No gentry cove he, but a high lawyer and rakehell," Strawberry said. Once more, Shakespeare agreed.

Once more, he dared not let Strawberry see as much. The constable went on, "Curious you twain should hold friends in common. Passing curious, I call it. How say you?"

"I say Nick Skeres is no friend of mine. I have said the same again and again. Will you not heed me, sir?"

Shakespeare showed a little anger. Were he honest, he thought he would have done so. And it helped hide his fear.

Before Constable Strawberry could answer, another man came up to Shakespeare: an older man, jowly and leaning on a stick. Strawberry bowed to him. "Give you good day, Sir Edmund."

"And you, Constable," Sir Edmund Tilney answered. "Give me leave to speak to Master Shakespeare here, if you please."

"Certes, certes. Shall I gainsay the Master of the Revilements?" Walter Strawberry bowed again and withdrew.

Shakespeare too made a leg at Sir Edmund. "Good morrow, sir. What would you?"

The Master of the Revels looked around to make sure Strawberry was out of earshot before murmuring,

"That man will trip to death on's own tongue."

"Nothing in his life'd become him like the leaving of it," Shakespeare said.

"He is an annoyance, but surely not so bad as that," Tilney said.

"His vexatiousness knows no bounds." With a sigh, Shakespeare added, "But it will be what it is, an I rail at it or no. I ask again, sir: how may I serve you?"

"In the matter o'er which I come hither, I am your servant, Master Shakespeare," the Master of the Revels replied. "I speak of your King Philip."

"Ah. Say on, sir. Whatsoe'er the play in your view wants, I shall supply. Direct me, that I may have the changes done in good time, his Most Catholic Majesty failing by the day." Shakespeare crossed himself.

So did Sir Edmund. His awkward motion told how full of years he'd been before the success of the Armada brought Catholicism and its rituals back to England. He said, "No need for change here, not by the standards of mine office. By the standards of dramaturgy. The purpose of playing was and is to hold, as 'twere, the glass up to nature. Methinks you have held it here most exceeding well."

"For the which you have my most sincerest thanks." Shakespeare meant every word of that. If all went as Robert Cecil hoped, King Philip would never be staged. Even so, the poet had worked as hard and as honestly on it as on Boudicca. He had no small pride in what he'd achieved. That the Master of the Revels-a man who'd likely seen the scripts for more plays than anyone else alive-should recognize its quality filled him with no small pride.

"You have earned your praises," Tilney said now. Shakespeare bowed. The Master returned the gesture.

Then he asked, "Wherefore doth Master Strawberry make inquiry of you?"

"He is Sir Oracle, and, when he opes his lips, let no dog bark!" Shakespeare said sourly. Sir Edmund chuckled. But Shakespeare realized his answer would not do. Tilney could ask the constable himself.

Better to lull him than to let Strawberry fan his suspicion to flame. The poet went on, "He seeks him who murthered Geoffrey Martin and Matt Quinn."

"He cannot believe you are the man?" Tilney said.

"No, sir, for which I thank God. But, quotha, the man he suspects and I both are known to the same man. From this I seem to lie under reflected suspicion, so to speak."

"Whom have you in common?" the Master of the Revels asked.

Shakespeare wished he would have picked a different question. "One Nicholas Skeres, sir," he said, again knowing Walter Strawberry could give the answer if he didn't.

"Nick Skeres?" Tilney said. Shakespeare nodded. " 'Sblood, I've known Nick Skeres these past ten years, near enough," Sir Edmund told him. "A friend of Marlowe's, Nick Skeres is. I'd not dice with him, I'll say that: he hath no small skill in the cheating law, and he'd not stick at sliding high men or low men or fullams into the game to gull a cousin. But a murtherer? I find that hard to credit, and I'd say as much to the constable's face."

"Gramercy, if you'd be so kind," Shakespeare said. He too thought Skeres would use dice with only high numbers or only low ones or weighted dice whenever he thought he could get away with it. "Master Strawberry's importunings do leave me distracted from seeing King Philip forward. Could you ease them. "

"I hope I may," the Master of the Revels said. "Zeal without sense is like a mast without stays-the man having the one without the other will soon fall into misfortune. Ay, Master Shakespeare, I'll bespeak Strawberry for you."

"For the which many thanks, sir. I'd be most disgraceful to you on account of't," Shakespeare said, deadpan.

Sir Edmund Tilney started to nod and turn away. Then he heard what Shakespeare had really said. After one of the better double takes the poet had seen, Sir Edmund guffawed. "You are a most dangerous vile wicked fellow," he said, "and you know your quarry as a cony-catcher knows his cony."

"Why, whatever can you mean?" Shakespeare said. This time, they both laughed. Tilney clapped him on the shoulder and went off to chat with Thomas Vincent. By the way the prompter smiled and nodded, Sir Edmund was also telling him Lord Westmorland's Men could legitimately perform King Philip.

Shakespeare peered into a looking-glass. He muttered under his breath-he'd missed some greasepaint below one eye, so he looked as if he had a shiner. He scrubbed at the makeup with a rough cloth, then examined himself again. This time, he nodded in satisfaction.

The sun hung low in the west when he left the Theatre. The equinox had come the day before. Soon, all too soon, days would dwindle down to the brief hours of late autumn and winter. A chill breeze that smelled of rain made him glad of his thick wool doublet.

He hadn't gone far towards London before he saw Marlowe perched on a boulder by the side of Shoreditch High Street. The other poet, plainly, was waiting for him. "Begone, you carrion crow, you croaker, you slovenly unhandsome corse," Shakespeare said.

"Your servant, sir." Marlowe descended from the rock and made a leg at him. "You can play the ghost: I deny it not. Henceforth, I'll hear in your voice dead Darius' words."

"I may play the ghost, but, do you not get hence, you'll have the role in good earnest," Shakespeare answered. "Robert Cecil knows you are returned to London. An his men find you, you are sped." He didn't tell Marlowe he was the one who'd given Cecil that news.

"Wherefore should he seek to jugulate me?" Marlowe asked.

"Play not the innocent with me, thou false virgin," Shakespeare said, wondering whether Marlowe were virgin anywhere upon his person. "You know o'ermuch of. this and that." He named no names, not with other people walking in Shoreditch High Street. "You know o'ermuch, and your tongue flaps like drying linen i'the wind. Cause aplenty to see you silent-is't not so?"

"Like drying linen i'the wind? Thou most lying slave!"

"Nay." Shakespeare shook his head. "By God, Kit, hear me: I tell you the truth." He clicked his tongue between his teeth in annoyance. He'd automatically come out with a line of blank verse, and not a very good one.

Marlowe noticed the same thing. "And ten low words oft creep in one dull line," he jeered-more blank verse, with a nasty barb.

"Mock an you would. Mock-but go. Stay and you die the death, if not from the likes of Ingram Frizer, then from the dons. What Cecil knows, belike they'll learn anon. Can you tell me I am mistook?"

They walked along, arguing. "I can tell you I'm fain to stay to see the hand played out," Marlowe said stubbornly.

"When first you learned the Spaniards dogged you, you nigh wet yourself for fear of 'em," Shakespeare said. "Then you were wise. This you show forth now, 'tis but a madman's courage. 'Steeth, did you not see you all but trod on de Vega's toes, there amongst the groundlings?"

"I saw him, ay, with yet another trull," Marlowe said, scorn in his voice. "What of it? He knew me not."

First the Widow Kendall had doubted Cicely Sellis' chastity. Now Marlowe did the same. Shakespeare hadn't argued with his landlady. He saw little point to correcting Kit, either. Instead, he tried once more to make the other poet see sense: "You are no player here. Being none, lie low, lest you bring yourself to the notice of them who'd lay you low. An you would-an you must-see how the hand plays out, but suffer it not to be played upon your person."

"The counsel of a craven," Marlowe said. "I looked for better from you, Will."

"You will throw your life away, you mad-headed ape. 'Tis pikestaff plain you care not a fig therefor: well, be it so. But in your lunacy will you throw old England away with it?"

"What's old England to me or I to old England, that I should weep for her?" Marlowe seemed genuinely curious.

"Say you so?" Shakespeare clapped a hand to his forehead. "You brought me to this game, marble-pated fiend, and now it likes you not? Fie on you!"

Marlowe laughed. "As though I were a Latin verb, you misconstrue me. For the game I care greatly; 'tis the game lured me back from Margate. I will see it played. An I may, I will play it. Ay, the game's the thing. But for England?" He snapped his fingers. "That for old England." With a nod, he ducked into the doorway of a tenement and disappeared.

Shakespeare started to go after him, then stopped, muttering a curse. What good would it do? None.

Less than none, probably. Shakespeare didn't believe Marlowe despised his country, as he said he did.

He was all pose, all outrageousness, all shock. But force him to it and he might decide he had to act on his pose. Better to leave him alone and hope he came to his senses on his own.

Better he had not left them, Shakespeare thought, but then, Use every man after his desert, and who should 'scape whipping? That cheery notion uppermost in his mind, he trudged on down towards Bishopsgate.

Enrique stretched out an imploring hand to Lope de Vega. "Senior Lieutenant, you must let me know when you are to play Juan de IdiA?quez on the English stage," Baltasar GuzmA?n's man said. "I will come to see you, though I still know less of the language than I should."

"I'll be glad to see you," de Vega said. "I fear it won't be long."

"I fear the same. Every ship from Spain brings worse word of his Most Catholic Majesty." Enrique crossed himself.

So did Lope. For all he knew, King Philip might already have died. Strange to think he would be in his grave back in Spain while here in England, till news of his death arrived, he still ruled. A play could make something of those twists of time and knowledge, Lope thought. He wondered how he might shape it.

"God protect the new King when his day comes" Enrique said.

Lope nodded. "Yes. God protect him indeed."

He and Enrique shared a glance. They both knew Philip III was not half, was not a quarter, of the man Philip II had been. Neither of them could say such a thing, but saying and knowing were far from the same. Lope feared for Spain in the reign of Philip II's son. He couldn't say that, either. He could pray.

He'd done a lot of praying lately.

Or he could try to put his worries out of his mind. He bowed to Enrique almost as respectfully as he would have to Captain GuzmA?n, then said, " Hasta luego. I'm off to Bishopsgate."

Enrique smiled. "Good luck with your new lady friend, Senior Lieutenant."

What a pity she is only a friend, Lope thought, and then, Well, if God is on my side, I may yet make her more. To Enrique, he said only, "Thank you very much," and hurried out of the barracks in the heart of London.

But his little chat with Captain Guzman's servant delayed him just enough so that, as he was coming out, he nearly bumped into Walter Strawberry, who was coming in. He couldn't escape the man, no matter how much he wanted to. With such grace as he could muster, he smiled and said, "Give you good day, Constable Strawberry."

"God give you good morrow as well, Lieutenant," Strawberry replied. "I have heard a thing passing strange, strange as any I have seen, the which, methought, I should bring to your honor's orifice."

"Say on," de Vega urged, hoping the Englishman would come to the point-if he had a point-and let him get on his way up to see Cicely Sellis.

In his own fashion, Walter Strawberry did: "Dame Tumor hath it, sir, that Christopher Marlowe, otherwise styling himself one Karl Tuesday, is returned to London and making himself unbeknownst hereabouts."

Lope stared. That was news-if true. "How know you this? Have you seen him?"

"As I told you, not with mine own ears," the constable answered. "But I have much attestation thereto, from certain of them that share his advice."

"His advice?" De Vega frowned, wondering what Strawberry was trying to say. Suddenly, a light dawned. "Mean you-?"

"I mean what I say, and not a word of it," Strawberry declared. "He hath the advice of Gomorrah, wherefrom is he also tumorously said to suffer from the malediction which hight gomorrhea, or peradventure from the French pox."

That held enough tangles to hide a swarm of foxes from the hounds, but Lope ruthlessly cut through them:

"You have it from catamites and sodomites that Marlowe is returned to London?" He didn't know whether Marlowe was diseased, nor much care. That wasn't his worry, not now.

And Walter Strawberry nodded. "Said I not so?"

"One never knows," Lope murmured. He clapped the English constable on the shoulder. "You have done me a service to bring this word hither. Believe you me, sir, if Marlowe be in this city, we shall run him to earth. And now, I pray you, forgive, for I must away." He pushed past Strawberry and out into St.

Swithin's Lane.

"But-" Strawberry called after him. He heard no more, for he was hurrying up the street, on his way to Bishopsgate at last. His rapier slapped against his thigh at every step.

His thoughts whirled. How could Marlowe have come back to London when he'd gone to sea? Why would he have come back? Knowing Marlowe fairly well, Lope made his own guess about that.

Something was stirring, and the Englishman wanted to see it, whatever it was. Marlowe could no more stay away from trouble than bees from flowering clover. What sort of trouble? de Vega wondered. One thing immediately sprang to mind: treason.

This means more questions for Shakespeare, Lope thought unhappily. If I find him at the lodging-house, I'll ask them now.

But the old woman who ran the place shook her head when he asked if Shakespeare was there. "Surely you must know, sir, he is gone up to the Theatre, for to earn the bite wherewith his rent- my rent-to pay," she said nervously.

Lope thought about going up to Shoreditch straightaway, but decided it would keep. He had no proof Shakespeare knew anything of Marlowe's return. For that matter, he had no proof Marlowe had returned. De Vega hoped Walter Strawberry was wrong, both for Marlowe's sake and because that would mean less trouble lay ahead.

When he knocked on Cicely Sellis' door, she opened it at once. But when she saw him standing there, she started a little, or more than a little. "Oh. Master Lope. I looked for. another."

"For Christopher Marlowe?" de Vega rapped out, suddenly suspicious of everyone around him.

But the cunning woman shook her head. "I know him not," she said. If she was acting, she proved how fond and foolish England's ban on actresses was. "Why are you come here?"

"To speak with thee," Lope said, seizing the opportunity.

Her mouth narrowed in exasperation. "Come you in, then," she said, "but only for a moment, mind."

Though she must have heard him use the intimate pronoun, she didn't follow suit.

As soon as Lope stepped inside, he realized she'd been waiting for a client. Astrological symbols were scrawled on the wall in charcoal, a circle inscribed on the rammed-earth floor. Tall candles burned to either side of the circle. Within it, Mommet scratched behind one ear to rout out a flea, then yawned at the Spaniard, showing needle teeth. It was de Vega's turn to say, "Oh," as light dawned, and then,

"You'd tell a fortune." He dropped thou himself.

"Ay, and for a good price, too, of the which stand I in need," Cicely Sellis said. "Say what you would and then, I pray you, away. The bird comes anon."

And you don't want a Spaniard about to frighten him off, whoever he is, de Vega thought. Well, fair enough. Better trusting her intentions, he sighed dramatically and tried again: "I'd speak to thee of love."

Her smile showed more annoyance than amusement. "I tell you, sir, I've no time for't now. Speak me fair another day, an't please you, and who knows? Haply I will hear you."

"Haply?" he said, less than delighted at the hedge.

But Cicely Sellis nodded. "Haply," she repeated, her voice firm. "Would you have me promise more than I may give?"

"By my troth, I'd kiss thee with a most constant heart," Lope said.

She looked harassed. The cat, eerily reflecting her mood as it often did, bared its teeth again. After a moment, though, she said, "A bargain: one kiss, and then you go? If there be more between us, let it wait its proper occasion, which this is not."

"One kiss, then, lady, and I am hence," Lope promised. She nodded once more, and stepped forward.

He took her in his arms. Having but the one chance, he made the most of it, clasping her to him so their bodies molded to each other. Her mouth was sweet and knowing against his.

The kiss went on and on. At last, though, it had to end. Lope's arms still around her, Cicely Sellis stroked his cheek. But she said only one word: "Farewell."

" Aii, thou'lt tear out my heart like the savage men of New Spain!" Lope cried. She only waited. He thought about the risks of breaking a bargain with a bruja-thought about them and found them formidable. Though his lips still glowed from the touch of hers, he bowed stiffly. "Farewell," he echoed, and, spinning on his heel, strode out of her room and out of the lodging-house.

Storming away, he almost ran into-almost ran over-another man heading for the Widow Kendall's house: a broad-shouldered fellow with a smooth face and with hair cut short. Lope took a step past the man, then froze, remembering what Walter Strawberry had told him. "Marlowe!" he said, and his sword seemed to leap from its sheath into his hand.

Christopher Marlowe whirled. He too wore a rapier. It flashed free. "The fig of Spain!" he shouted. His obscene gesture matched the words.

"Put up!" Lope said. "Put up and give over. You're caught. Even an you beat me, you're known to be in London. How can you hope to win free? Yield you now."

"I will not." Marlowe sighed and shook his head. "Base fortune, now I see, that in thy wheel there is a point, to which when men aspire they tumble headlong down." He seemed to speak more to himself than to de Vega. "That point I touched, and seeing there was no point to mount up higher, why should I grieve at my declining fall?" With no more warning than that, he thrust at Lope's heart.

Lope beat the blade aside. His hand had more to do with his answering stroke than did his brain, though perhaps he remembered his fight with Don Alejandro de Recalde. His point took Marlowe not in the right eye but above it. The English poet let out a shriek that faded almost at once to a rattling gurgle. He fell down in the street, dead as a stone.

A big, rough-looking blond man wearing a disreputable cap smiled at Lope, showing a couple of missing teeth. "Gramercy, your honor," he said, and touched the brim of that cap. "You just saved me a bit o' work, that you did." Before the Spaniard could ask him what he meant, he hurried away.

Another man said, "I shall fetch a constable hither." He too hurried off.

"Yes, do, and yarely," Lope called after him. "An you come on a Spanish patrol, fetch them likewise." He looked down at his rapier. The last couple of inches of the blade had blood on them, blood and Christopher Marlowe's brains. He stabbed the sword into the ground to clean it, as he had after slaying Don Alejandro.

Lope was still waiting by Marlowe's body for the constable and for his own countrymen when bells began to chime, first at one church far away, then at another and another and another, till after no more than a minute or two the bronzen clangor filled all the streets of London. "What signifies that?" someone asked. Someone else shrugged. But Lope knew what it meant, what it had to mean, and ice and fire ran through him.

His Most Catholic Majesty, King Philip II of Spain, after so long dying, at last was dead. And Lope de Vega, standing there bare blade in hand, burst into tears like a little boy.

A dapper little gamecock of an officer rapped out a question in Spanish. Shakespeare looked to Lope de Vega, who translated it into English: "Captain GuzmA?n would know why Christopher Marlowe was bound for your lodging when we chanced each upon the other. I own, I too am fain to know the same."

"As am I," Shakespeare said. If his voice trembled, who could blame him? The dons had come for him at dawn, as he was about to leave the Widow Kendall's for the Theatre, and marched him here to their barracks instead. If they misliked the answers he gave them, he was assuredly a dead man-nor was he all that would die. He went on, "Methought Kit was fled abroad."

Had anybody who could recognize Marlowe seen him and Shakespeare together? If someone gave him the lie. He refused to dwell on that. If someone gave him the lie there, the Spaniards wouldn't merely question him. They would put him to the question, an altogether different and more painful business.

But all de Vega said was, "Plainly not."

You fool's zany, you stood close by him at Cambyses and knew him not, Shakespeare thought.

Captain Guzman flung more Spanish at him. Again, Lope de Vega did the honors: "He asks, how is't Constable Strawberry knew Marlowe was returned to London whilst you remained deep-sunk in ignorance?"

Damn Constable Strawberry. But Shakespeare knew he had to have a better answer than that. He said, "Belike the constable will have ears 'mongst the masculine whores of's bailiwick. Knowing Kit's pleasures, they'd learn he was in these parts or ever the generality heard it."

De Vega spoke in excited Spanish to his superior. Captain Guzman's reply sounded anything but convinced. Lope spoke again, even more passionately. GuzmA?n answered with a shrug.

To Shakespeare, de Vega said, " 'Twas even so Strawberry got wind of't-thus he told me when I inquired of him."

"Well, then." Shakespeare dared risk indignation. "This being so, wherefore tax you me o'er that which I wist not of?"

After de Vega rendered that into his own language, Baltasar GuzmA?n growled something that sounded angry. "Thus saith my captain," Lope replied: "You standing on the edge of so many swamps of treason, how do your feet stay dry?"

"I am no traitor," Shakespeare said, as he had to. "Were I such a caitiff rogue, could I have writ King Philip?"

Once more, Lope translated his words into Spanish. Once more, he did not presume to answer himself, but waited for his superior to respond. Captain Guzman spoke a curt sentence in Spanish. "That is what we seek to learn-if the worm of treason still begnaw your soul," was how de Vega put it in English.

" Still,' is't?" Shakespeare knew he was fighting for his life, and could concede his foes nothing. "My duty to your captain, Master Lope, and say this most precisely: by this word he assumes me treacherous, and proves himself no honest judge. He must forthwith retract it, as slanderous to my honor."

And how would Captain Guzman respond to that? By letting him defend his honor with a sword? If so, he was a dead man. He had no skill at swordplay, whereas a Spanish officer was all too likely to be a deadly man of his hands. Lope de Vega had certainly shown himself to be such a man, at any rate.

But Guzman nodded and then bowed low. He spoke in Spanish. "You have reason, quotha," Lope said. "Naught against you is proved, nor should he have spake as if it were. He cries your pardon therefor." Shakespeare bowed in return; he hadn't expected even so much. The Spaniard spoke again, this time harshly. "Naught against you is proved, saith he, but much suspected. We will have answers from you."

"I have given all I can," Shakespeare said, "and so shall I do. Ask what you would."

They pounded him with questions about Marlowe, about Nick Skeres, about Ingram Frizer, and about the late Sir William Cecil. They had most of the pieces to the puzzle, but did not know how-or even if-they fit together. Shakespeare told them as little as he could. He admitted having heard Marlowe and Nicholas Skeres knew each other. That wouldn't hurt Marlowe now, and Skeres remained safely out of the dons' hands.

When Shakespeare said he was thirsty, they gave him strong sack to drink. He wished he'd kept his mouth shut; the wine was liable to make him trip over his own tongue and fall to his doom. But he could not refuse it, not after he'd complained. He sipped carefully, never taking too much.

After some endless while, someone knocked on the door to Captain Guzman's office. Guzman snarled a Spanish curse. He pointed to the door. Lope de Vega opened it. In came a skinny, pockmarked Englishman wearing spectacles: Thomas Phelippes.

Shakespeare didn't know whether to rejoice or to despair. The Spaniards had not said a word about Phelippes, for good or ill. Did that mean the dusty little man had succeeded in covering his tracks? Or did it mean Phelippes was their man, a spy at the very heart of the plot?

Whatever he was, he spoke in Spanish far too quick and fluent to give Shakespeare any hope of following it. Before long, Baltasar GuzmA?n answered him sharply. Phelippes overrode the officer.

Shakespeare caught the name of Don Diego Flores de Valdes, the Spanish commandant in England.

He caught the name, yes, but nothing that went with it. Captain Guzman spoke again. Once again, Thomas Phelippes talked him down. Guzman looked as if he'd bitten into a lemon.

At last, Lope de Vega returned to English: "Don Diego being satisfied you are a true and trusty man, Master Shakespeare, you are at liberty to get hence, and to return to your enterprises theatrical. After King Philip be put before the general. then we may delve further into such questions as remain."

"Gramercy." Shakespeare could honestly show relief here. "And gramercy to you as well, Master Phelippes."

"Thank me not." Phelippes' voice came blizzard-cold. " 'Tis my principal's mercy upon you, not mine own. Don Diego hath a good and easy spirit. Mine is less yielding, and I do wonder at his wisdom, obey though I must. Get hence, as saith Master Lope, and thank God you have leave to go."

"By my halidom and hope of salvation, sir, I do thank Him." Shakespeare crossed himself. "For God shall be my hope, my stay, my guide and lantern to my feet." He crossed himself.

Phelippes and de Vega also made the sign of the cross. So did Captain Guzman, when Phelippes translated Shakespeare's words. Then Guzman made a brusque gesture: get out. The poet had never been so glad as to obey.

Outside the barracks, the day was dark and cloudy, with occasional cold, nasty spatters of drizzle. To Shakespeare, it seemed as glorious as the brightest, warmest, sunniest June. He'd never expected to see freedom again. A Spanish soldier-a fierce little man who wore his scars like badges of honor-coming into the building growled something at him, probably, Get out of the way. Shakespeare sprang to one side. The soldier tramped past him without a backwards glance.

Shakespeare hurried off towards the Theatre. "What is't o' clock?" he called to somebody coming the other way.

"Why, just struck one," the man answered.

Nodding his thanks, Shakespeare trotted on. The audience was filing into the wooden building in Shoreditch when he got there. One of the men at the cash box tried to take a penny from him. "Nay, 'tis Master Shakespeare," another man said. "Where were you, Master Shakespeare? You are much missed."

"Where? In durance vile," Shakespeare replied. "But I am free, and ready-more than ready-to give my lines with a good heart."

A cheer rose from the players when he rushed into the tiring room. Richard Burbage bowed as low as if he were a duke. Will Kemp sidled up to him and said, "We feared you'd ta'en sick o' the tisick that claimed Geoff Martin and Matt Quinn."

"Tisick?" the poet exclaimed. "You style it so?"

"Certes," Kemp said innocently. "A surfeit of iron in the gullet, was't not?"

"Away, away." That was Jack Hungerford. Even Kemp took the tireman seriously. He slouched off.

Hungerford said, "Out of your clothes, Master Will, and into costume, for the apparel oft proclaims the man."

"Have I time for the change?" Shakespeare asked, for he would appear in the second scene of Thomas Dekker's comedy.

"You have, sir, an you use it 'stead of talking back," Hungerford said severely. Without another word, Shakespeare donned the silk and scarlet the tireman gave him.

Not the smallest miracle of the day, at least to him, was that he did remember his lines. He even got laughs for some of them. When he came back on stage to take his bows after the play was done, he felt as dizzy as if he'd spent too long dancing round a maypole: too much had happened too fast that day.

Afterwards, as he exchanged the gorgeous costume for his ordinary clothes, Burbage came up to him and said, "We did fear you'd found misfortune-or misfortune had found you. Why so late?"

"De Vega yesterday slew Marlowe outside my lodging-house," Shakespeare answered wearily. "A man need not see far into a millstone to wonder why Kit was come thither. The dons this morning gave me an escort of soldiery to their barracks, that they might enquire into what matters he carried in's mind."

"Marry!" Burbage muttered. His proud, fleshy face went pale. "And you said?"

"Why, that I knew not, the which is only truth." Whose ears besides Richard Burbage's were listening?

Shakespeare let them hear nothing different from what he'd told de Vega and GuzmA?n. He added, "By my troth, I knew not that poor Marlowe was returned to London."

"Nor I," Burbage agreed. He too played for other ears-Shakespeare had told him Marlowe was back.

Liars both, they smiled at each other.

When Shakespeare got back to his lodging-house after the performance, the Widow Kendall gave him an even warmer welcome than his fellow players had. "Oh, Master Will, I thought you sped!" she cried.

"An the dons seize a man, but seldom returneth he."

"I am here. I am hale." Shakespeare bowed, as if to prove he'd undergone no crippling torture. " 'Twas but a misfortunate misunderstanding."

"Misunderstanding, forsooth!" Jane Kendall exclaimed. "A misunderstanding like to prove your death."

She poked him with a pudgy forefinger. "And all centering on the accursed sodomite, that Marlowe, the which Mistress Sellis' Spaniard did slay in the street like a cur-dog this day just past."

Before Shakespeare could answer, the door to Cicely Sellis' room opened. Out came the cunning woman, with a plump, worried-looking Englishman. Mommet wove around her ankles. "Fear not, sir, and trust God," she told her client. "He will provide."

"May it be so, my lady," he said, as if she were a noblewoman. Bobbing a nod to Shakespeare and the Widow Kendall, he hurried out into the gathering gloom.

After he'd closed the door behind him, Cicely Sellis said, "Lieutenant de Vega is not my Spaniard, Mistress Kendall. And, though he'd fain make me his Englishwoman, I am not that, neither."

Jane Kendall signed herself. "By my halidom, Mistress Sellis, I–I meant no harm," she stammered. "

'Twas but a-a manner of speaking." She brightened. "Yes, that's it-a manner of speaking."

"Ay, belike." The cunning woman's words said she accepted that. Her tone said something else altogether. But then, as her cat went over to Shakespeare and rubbed against his leg, she gave him a smile full of what he thought to be unfeigned gladness. "Like Mistress Kendall, right pleased am I to see you here, to see you well, once more."

"I do own I am right pleased once more to come hither," Shakespeare answered. He wondered how Cicely Sellis could have known what he and their landlady were talking about. She had, after all, been behind a closed door. Were her ears as keen as that? Shakespeare supposed it was-just-possible. He stooped to scratch the corner of Mommet's jaw. The cat pushed its head into his hand and purred louder.

"Have a care," Cicely Sellis said. "The game is not played out." She sounded almost oracular, as she had that one time in the parlor when she didn't recall what she'd said after saying it.

"I am but a player and somewhat of a poet," Shakespeare said. "I'd not play at subtle games." He wondered if she'd remark on the difference between would and will. Instead, and to his relief, she only nodded.

He ducked into his bedchamber, got his writing tools and the new play-his own play! — he was working on, and went off to the ordinary for supper. "Will!" Kate cried when he came through the door.

"Dear-beloved Will!" The serving woman threw herself into his arms and kissed him.

"Did I know it roused such affections in thee, I'd have the Spaniards seize me every day," Shakespeare said. That made a couple of men who were already eating chuckle. It made Kate pretend to box his ears.

After he'd supped, after he'd written, after the last of the other customers had left the ordinary, she took him up to her cramped little room. They both made love with something like desperation. "Oh, fond Will, what's to become of thee?" she said. "What's to become of us?"

Wanting to give her some soothing lie, he found he couldn't. "I know not," he said. After a moment, he added, "Ere long, though, I shall.We shall." One way or another, he thought, but did not say that. He caressed her instead.

"I fear for thee," she whispered.

"I fear for me," he answered. "But I needs must go on; this road hath no turning, the which I could not use e'en an it had."

"What mean'st thou?" Kate asked.

"I will not tell thee, lest I harm thee in the telling. Soon enough, thou'lt know." Shakespeare got up and quickly dressed. As he opened the door to go, he added another handful of words: "Come what may, remember me." He closed the door behind him.

When he got back to the lodging-house, he put a couple of chunks of wood on the fire to fight the night chill. The Widow Kendall had gone to bed, and couldn't scold him. From the room where Shakespeare would eventually sleep, Jack Street's snores reverberated. The poet waited till the fresh wood was burning brightly, then sat down in front of the fire and got to work.

He wasn't unduly surprised to hear a door open a few minutes later, or to see Cicely Sellis-and Mommet-come out into the parlor. "Give you good even," he said, nodding to the cunning woman.

"Good den to you," she answered, and sat on a stool while the cat prowled the room. "Do I disturb you?"

"By your being, now and again. By your being here"-Shakespeare gave her a wry smile and shook his head-"nay. I am enough bemoiled in toils and coils to. " His voice trailed away. He'd already said as much as he could say-probably too much.

Cicely Sellis gave him a grave nod, as if she knew exactly what he was talking about. Perhaps she did, for she said, "The matter of the dons, and of Master Marlowe cut down like a dog in the street." It did not sound like a question.

Shakespeare eyed her. How much had she heard from Lope de Vega? Whatever she'd heard, what did she think about it? He desperately needed to know, and dared not ask. Instead, he sat silent, waiting to hear what she said next.

Her shrug was small and sad. "You misdoubt me. So many on small acquaintance gladly entrust me with their all, yet you misdoubt me. Alack the heavy day."

"I may do only as I do," Shakespeare answered. "Did I say more-" Now he broke off sharply, shaking his head. That was too much, too.

"Peradventure you are wiser than the many," the cunning woman said. And yet, from her expression, she'd found out most of what she wanted to know. Shakespeare wondered how much his stumbles and sudden silences had told her. She went on, "Think what you will, I mean you no harm, nor England, neither." Before he could find any sort of answer to that, she clucked to Mommet. The cat came like a well-trained dog. With a murmured, "Good night," she went back into her room.

Shakespeare got very little work done after that.

When he walked into the Theatre the next morning, he found Lieutenant de Vega already there, in earnest conversation with Richard Burbage. Burbage was bowing and nodding. Seeing Shakespeare, de Vega bowed, too. "Be there proclamation made throughout the city," he said, "that Lord Westmorland's Men shall offer King Philip on Tuesday of the week following this now present, the thirteenth day of October, marking a month to the day of his Most Catholic Majesty's departure from this life for a better place."

The Spaniard crossed himself; Shakespeare and Burbage made haste to imitate him. He went on, "So saith Don Diego Flores de ValdA©s, commander of our Spanish soldiers in England. Shall all be in readiness for the said performance?"

"Ay, Master Lope, so long as you show forth Juan de IdiA?quez as he should be seen," Shakespeare answered.

"I already told you ay, Master de Vega," Burbage said heavily. "That being so, you need not seek the scribbler's assurances besides mine own."

As head of the company, he was, of course, quite right. All the same, the bold way he said it might have offended Shakespeare. Not today. His heart pounded. At last, the date was set. Without a word, he bowed to Burbage and to Lope de Vega.

For his life, Shakespeare could not have said which play Lord Westmorland's Men put on that afternoon, though he had a role in it. He came back to himself on his way home from the Theatre, when a little hunchbacked beggar, filthy and clad in rags, came up to him and whined, "Alms, gentle sir? God's mercy upon you for your grace to a poor, hungry man."

Instead of walking past him or sending him on his way with a curse, Shakespeare stopped and stared.

Where he had not known the visage, he recognized the voice: there before him, ingeniously disguised, stood Robert Cecil. Lord Burghley's son grinned-grinned a little maniacally, in fact-at the look on Shakespeare's face. Gathering himself, the poet whispered, "What would you, sir?"

"Why a penny, of your kindness," Robert Cecil said, and Shakespeare did give him a coin. Under cover of capering with delight, Cecil went on, also in a low voice, "You shall not give King Philip come Tuesday next, but your Boudicca. If all follow well from that and other matters now in train, England her liberty shall regain. Till the day, be of good cheer and dread naught."

Off he went, begging from others in Shoreditch High Street. Shakespeare walked on towards the Widow Kendall's, and his dread grew with every step he took.

Seeing the bright sun that shone down on London on the appointed day, Lope de Vega couldn't have been more delighted. When his servant came into his inner chamber, he beamed sunnily himself.

"What a grand day, Diego! It might be spring, not autumn," he said. "The heavens do all they can to make King Philip well received."

" Si, senor." Diego sounded altogether indifferent. "That English constable, that Strawberry, is waiting outside. He wants to talk with you about something."

"Today? Now? Oh, for the love of God!" Lope felt like tearing his hair. "I have no time to deal with him.

I need to go to the Theatre to rehearse. What can he want?"

Diego shrugged. "I don't know. I don't speak English."

"By all the saints, neither does he!" Lope calmed himself. "I can't escape him, I see. Bring him in. I'll deal with him as fast as I can."

Walter Strawberry's solid bulk seemed to fill the little chamber to overflowing. "God give you good morrow, sir," he rumbled.

"And to you as well, Constable," de Vega answered. "What's toward? Be quick, if you can; I must away to the Theatre anon."

"Ay, sir. Quick I am, and quick I'll be. And, being quick, I'll tell you somewhat or ever I die."

Whenever Lope listened to Strawberry, he felt himself going round in dizzying circles. Keeping a tight grip on his patience, he nodded. "Say on."

"Know you, sir, that Master Shakespeare hath ta'en to talking to buggers in the street?"

"Buggers?" De Vega scratched his head. "Surely you are mistook, Christopher Marlowe being dead."

The constable looked as bewildered as Lope felt. "Marlowe? Who said aught of Marlowe? I speak of buggers with palms for alms outstretched, amongst the which is a little dancing crookbacked wight who bears a passing verisimilitude unto Master Robert Cecil."

Cecil's was perhaps the only name that could have gained Lope's complete and immediate attention. "Say you so?" he murmured, leaning towards Strawberry. "Say you so indeed? Be you certain of this?"

"I am." Walter Strawberry nodded. "It hath been witnessed by witnesses thereto, and likewise by those who have seen the same. An it be not the same Robert Cecil, he hath a twin unrecked, though himself but the wreck of a man."

"Have you any other evidence past this which your witnesses, er, witnessed?" Lope asked. "Shakespeare denies all treasonous associations, and assuredly in the favor of Don Diego Flores de ValdA©s stands high. With reason, he having writ a splendid, yes, a most splendid, play on the life of his late Most Catholic Majesty, in which I shall have the honor of performing later this day. All this being so, you see, I am not fain to seize him without strongest proofs of's guilt."

"What I have, sir, I have given you," Constable Strawberry said. " 'Tis my bounding duty, and I have bounded hither for to do it."

"Damnation," de Vega muttered. Strawberry had brought him just enough to alarm him, but not enough to let him act, especially not after Shakespeare had wriggled free of trouble after Christopher Marlowe's return to London. Lope stroked his little chin beard as he thought. Suddenly, he pointed at the constable.

"Have you searched his lodging? If he have done treason, he will have done't with his pen. Why else engage a poet, a maker of plays, in the enterprise? Have you, then?"

"Not having a warrant?" Strawberry seemed genuinely shocked. "No, sir, I have not. That were beyond my bounds altogether, and beyond the bounds of any honest Englishman."

"A plague take all bounds, you-you bounder!" Lope burst out. He stabbed a thumb at his own chest. " I am no Englishman, for which I thank God. If I desire to search, I may search. I may-and, by the Blessed Virgin, I shall." Secure in the power the occupiers held, he had no doubt of that whatever.

Neither did Constable Strawberry. "You will do as you shall do. I have not the right nor the writ." He turned to go. "Adieu; be vigitant, I beseech you."

Vigitant or not, Lope hurried up to Shakespeare's lodging-house. The hour was still early enough to leave him content with the world and the way it shaped. What do I do if I find proof here? he asked himself.

The answer seemed clear enough. I play in King Philip, then arrange for Shakespeare's arrest. He sighed. Arresting the poet after he'd written such a play seemed a pity, but what choice was there? None de Vega could see.

He hoped Shakespeare was already off to the Theatre. He would have a fight on his hands if he tried to search while the Englishman was still there. He touched the hilt of his sword. He didn't want a reputation for killing playwrights, but he would take that reputation if he had to.

When he got to the lodging-house, he found Cicely Sellis in the parlor saying farewell to an early client.

The man showered her with blessings as he left. The cunning woman dropped de Vega a curtsy. "God give you good day, Master Lope," she said. "Why are you come here at such an hour?"

"In search of treason against his Most Catholic Majesty, the King of Spain," Lope said harshly. Mommet had sprawled by the hearth. At Lope's tone, the cat sprang to its feet, its fur on end, its tail puffed out like a bottle brush. He ignored it, asking, "Is Master Shakespeare here, or is he gone up to the Theatre?"

"Why, he is more than an hour gone," Cicely Sellis answered. She cocked her head to one side and gave Lope a slow, half sad smile. Catalina IbaA±ez would have laid down her life to own a smile like that; it left the Spaniard weak in the knees. The cunning woman added, "And here I hoped thou wert come to see me."

"Truly?" Lope said. Cicely Sellis didn't even nod. Just by standing there, she let him know it was and could be nothing but the truth. His pulse thudded. Whatever he did now, no one would take anything of Shakespeare's from this place while he did it. He had the time. He was sure he had the time. He made a low leg at her. "My lady, I stand ever at thy service." And he did stand, too, or part of him did.

"Come, then," she said, and went back into her room, Mommet trotting at her heels. Lope followed, eager as a green boy his first time. He closed and barred the door behind him.

As at his last visit, fat candles lit the closed room almost as bright as day. Mommet curled up in a corner, yawned once, and went to sleep. Cicely Sellis sat down on the bed. When Lope would have joined her there, she smiled again and, saying, "Anon, anon," waved him once more to the stool in front of it.

More than a bit sulkily, he perched there. "Thou'dst not tease, I trust?" he said. The intimate pronoun was sweet in his mouth.

"Marry, no," she replied. "And yet never would a woman be ta'en for granted thus."

De Vega was no green boy. Much experience told him she spoke the truth. He dipped his head to her.

"As thou'dst have it, so shall it be, though I needs must say in delay there lies no plenty."

"Prithee, bear with me," she said. "We that are lovers run into strange capers."

Before he could answer, she reached up and drew something out from under her dress: that sparkling glass pendant he'd seen once before, dangling on the end of its long chain. She swung it back and forth, back and forth. Lope thought it might have been a nervous habit, for she hardly seemed to know she was doing it. The pendant caught the candlelight and drew his eye to it as it swung. He looked away now and again, but his gaze kept coming back.

"Nay, a woman mislikes ever being hurried, ever being rushed, ever being told to give, and give forthwith." For all that her words might have shown annoyance, Cicely Sellis spoke in a soft, calm, smooth voice. "Is't not sweeter when freely offered, when tendered with full heart, with glad heart, with heart brimful of love, than when rudely seized ere the time be ripe, ere she be fully ready, ere she would do that which, in the fullness of time, she assuredly will do?"

"Assuredly," Lope echoed, his voice abstracted. He'd only half noted her words. His eyes kept following that sparkling pendant, back and forth, back and forth. After a little while, he wasn't sure he could have taken them away from it. But he didn't want to, so what difference did that make?

The cunning woman talked on, as smoothly and quietly as before. De Vega could not have told what she said; he noted her voice mostly as soothing background to the endless motion of the pendant. Back and forth, back and forth. Watching it, he felt almost as if he were falling asleep.

Before too very long, she asked, "Dear Lope, hearest thou me?"

"Ay." The sound of his own voice left him dully surprised; it might have come from far, far away.

"Hearken well, then, for I speak truth," she said. He nodded; in that moment, he could not possibly have doubted it. Even as he nodded, his eyes swung back and forth, back and. She went on, "Master Shakespeare hath done no treason. Hearest thou me?"

"I hear. Master Shakespeare hath done no treason." When she said it, when he affirmed it, it might have been carved in stone inside his mind.

"He hath no papers treasonous here: hence, no need to search. Hearest thou me, dear Lope?"

"No papers treasonous. No need to search." When she said it, when he said it, it was so. Holy Scripture could have been no truer for him.

"Nor hast thou need to seek him this day in the Theatre, for all will be well there," the cunning woman murmured.

"IdiA?quez. " Lope began. IdiA?quez glimmered in the glitter of glass and was gone. "No need to seek.

All will be well."

"All will be well," Cicely Sellis repeated. She led him through her catechism twice more. Then, as she stopped swinging the pendant and tucked it back into place, she said, "In token thou hast heard me well, when I bring my hands together thou'lt blow yon candle"-she pointed-"and then become again thine own accustomed self. Hearest thou me?"

"Ay, blow out that candle," Lope said. Cicely Sellis clapped her hands. He blinked and laughed, feeling as refreshed as if he'd just got out of bed after a good night's sleep. Then, laughing still, he sprang off the stool and blew out one of the candles by the head of the bed.

"Why didst thou so?" she asked.

"Its light shone in mine eyes," he answered. One quick step brought him to her. "And now, my sweet, my love, my life-" He took her in his arms.

She laughed, down deep in her throat. "Thine own accustomed self," she said, and it seemed to Lope for a heartbeat that he'd heard those words before. But then his lips came down on hers, and hers rose up to his, and he cared not a fig for anything he might have heard.