Ruled Britannia

English breed no traitors. Would 'twere true, but these past nine years have proved otherwise.

What did Burghley purpose? Shakespeare shook his head. Ignorance, here, is bliss. What I know not, no Spaniard can rip from me. He wished he didn't know it was tied to word of Philip's death. But the English nobleman had had to tell him that. He needed some notion of how long he had to write the play and to train the actors of his company to perform it.

That thought made him shake his head. He still didn't know whether all of Lord Westmorland's Men would appear in a play that, if Lord Burghley's rising failed, could only be judged treason. If he sounded a player and the man refused, what could he do? Could he do anything? Would not the very act of doing something make a disaffected player more likely to go to the Spaniards, or to the lickspittle English who followed Isabella and Albert?

Questions, questions. When questions come, they come not single spies, but in battalions. All the questions were out in the open. Answers skulked and hid and would not show themselves, either by light of day or in these miserable, useless, pointless nighttime reflections.

Shakespeare shook his head again. His bed let out another creak. Jack Street grunted, shifted, and, for a wonder, stopped snoring. In the third bed in the room, Sam King sighed softly. Had he been awake all this while, poor devil? Shakespeare wouldn't have been surprised. Street's cacophony took getting used to.

After some more squirming, Shakespeare felt sleep at last draw near. But then he thought of his curious meeting with Cicely Sellis, and rest retreated once more. She was a cunning woman indeed. Whoever called on her would get his money's worth, however much he paid. She was probably even cunning enough to keep from falling foul of the Church, which took Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live ever more seriously these days.

What had she meant when her voice changed there for a little while? Some sort of warning, without a doubt. But did it come from her alone, from God, or from Satan? Shakespeare ground his teeth. How could he know? Come to that, did Cicely Sellis herself know?

One more yawn, and sleep finally overmastered him. He woke in darkness the next morning. With the winter solstice at hand, the sun wouldn't rise till after eight of the clock, and would set before four in the afternoon. In the kitchen, porridge bubbled above the fire. Shakespeare filled a bowl with it. It was bland and uninteresting: barley and peas boiled to mush together, with hardly even any salt to add savor. He didn't care. It filled the empty place in his belly for a while.

Most of the lodgers were already gone before Shakespeare rose. Regardless of whether it was light or dark, they had their trades to follow. Cicely Sellis, by contrast, came into the kitchen just as the poet was finishing. The cunning woman nodded but said nothing. She too had her own trade to follow, but could follow it here at the lodging house. By the way Widow Kendall beamed at her, she was paying a pretty penny for that room of hers. Enough to make the widow raise the scot for the rest of us?

Shakespeare wondered worriedly. He doubted he could stand even one more vexation on top of so many.

When he went out into the street, he found he would have no accurate notion of when the sun came up, anyhow. Cold, clammy fog clung everywhere. It likely wouldn't lift till noon, if then. Shakespeare sucked in a long, damp breath. When he exhaled, he added fog of his own to that which had drifted up to Bishopsgate from the Thames.

He should have gone straight to the Theatre. He might have found some quiet time to write before the rest of the company came in and began rehearsing for the day's play.

Instead, though, he wandered south and east, away from the suburbs beyond the wall and down towards the river. He didn't know-or rather, didn't care to admit to himself-where he was going till he got there.

By the time he neared the lowland by the Thames, the fog hung a little above the ground.

But even the thickest fog would have had a hard time concealing the Tower of London. Its formidable gray stone wall and towers shouldered their way into the air. People said Julius Caesar had first raised the Tower. Shakespeare didn't know whether that was true or not, though he'd used the conceit in a couple of plays. The Tower surely seemed strong and indomitable enough to have stood since Roman days.

However strong it seemed, it hadn't kept the Spaniards out of London. And now, somewhere in there, Queen Elizabeth sat and brooded and waited for-deliverance? Can I help to give it her? Or give I but myself to death?

V

After Christmas mass, Lope de Vega and Baltasar Guzman happened to come out of the church of St. Swithin together. Lope bowed to his superior. ' Feliz Navidad, your Excellency,' he said.

Guzman, polite as a cat, returned the bow. 'And a happy Christmas to you as well, Senior Lieutenant,' he replied. 'I have a duty for you.'

De Vega wished he'd ignored courtesy. 'On the holy day?' he asked, dismayed.

'Yes, on the holy day.' Captain Guzman nodded. 'I am sorry, but it is necessary, and necessary that you do it today.' He didn't sound sorry. He never sounded sorry. He was stubborn as a cat, too; he went on, 'I want you to take yourself to the church of St. Ethelberge'-another English name he massacred-'and ask the priest there if this poet friend of yours, this Shakespeare, has come to partake of our Lord's body and blood on the anniversary of His birth.'

'Ah.' However much Lope wished otherwise, Captain GuzmA?n was right here, as he had been with going after John Walsh-this was a necessary duty. 'I shall attend to it directly. And if he has not?'

'If he has not, make note of it, but do no more now,' GuzmA?n replied. 'Then we watch him closely ten days from now. If he celebrates Christmas by the old calendar, the forbidden calendar, we shall know him for a Protestant heretic.'

'Yes, sir.' Lope sighed. 'Heretic or not, we surely know him for a splendid poet.'

'And if his splendid poetry serves Satan and the foes of Spain, isn't he all the more dangerous for being splendid?' Guzman said.

And he was right about that, too. Again, Lope wished otherwise. Again, he sighed. But, because Captain GuzmA?n was right, de Vega asked, 'How do I find this church of St. Ethelberge?' He had almost as much trouble with the name as his superior had done, and added, 'Where do the English find such people to canonize? Swithin here, Ethelberge there, and I hear there is also a St. Erkenwald in this kingdom.

Truly I wonder if Rome has ever heard of these so-called saints.'

'I have plenty of worries, but not that one,' Baltasar GuzmA?n said. 'If the Inquisition and the Society of Jesus found these saints were fraudulent, the churches dedicated to their memories would not stay open.'

He's right yet again, Lope thought, surprised and a little resentful. Three times in a row, all of a Christmas morning. He'd better be careful. If he keeps that up, I may have to start taking him seriously. He wouldn't like that, and I wouldn't, either. Since GuzmA?n hadn't answered him the first time, he tried again: 'How do I find St. Ethelberge's church, Captain?'

'It's Shakespeare's parish church,? Shakespeare lives in Bishopsgate? Go to Bishopsgate. You know the way there?' Guzman waited for Lope to respond. He had to nod, for he did know the way to and through that district: it led out of London proper to the Theatre. 'All right, then,' the captain told him. 'Go to Bishopsgate. If you find the church yourself, fine. If you don't, ask someone. Who wouldn't tell a man how to get to a church on Christmas morning?'

He was, of course, right yet again. 'I go,' Lope said, and hurried off toward Bishopsgate as much to escape Captain GuzmA?n and his alarmingly sharp wits as to find out whether Shakespeare had been to Mass. Even though the day was gloomy, London's houses and public buildings made a brave show, being decorated with wreaths and strands of holly and ivy, now and then wound up with broom. Many of the ornaments had candles burning in them, too. In the first couple of years after the coming of the Armada, such signs of the season had been rare. Elizabeth and her heretic advisors discouraged them, as they'd discouraged so many observances from the ritual year. But, with the return of Catholicism, the customs that had flourished before Henry VIII broke with Rome were also coming back to life.