Ruled Britannia

man's always fain to think himself free. Agent I am none, though. I am but tool, tool to be cast aside quick as any other useless thing of wood or iron.'

He waited, watching Burbage. The player was a man who delighted in being watched. He probably made up his mind well before he deigned to let Shakespeare know he'd made up his mind. He played deciding as if the Theatre were full, and every eye on him alone. 'Mayhap,' he said at last-a king granting mercy to a subject who probably did not deserve it. Shakespeare felt he ought to applaud.

Instead, he said, 'I'm for Bishopsgate. I've endless work to spend on King Philip.'

'And on. ' Burbage was vain and bad-tempered, but not a fool. He would not name, or even come close to naming, Boudicca-not here, not where so many ears might hear.

'Yes.' Shakespeare let it go at that. He set his hat on his head. Having his own share of a player's vanity, he tugged it down low on his forehead to hide his receding hairline. He'd squandered a few shillings on nostrums and elixirs purported to make hair grow back. One smelled like tar, another like roses, yet another like cat piss. None did any good; over the past year or so, he'd stopped wasting his money.

The Lenten threepenny supper at his ordinary was a stockfish porridge. Stockfish took hours of soaking to soften and to purge itself of the salt that preserved it. Even then, it was vile. It was also cheap, and doubtless helped pad the place's profit.

Because the ordinary was crowded, Shakespeare worked on King Philip there. The more of the other play he wrote, the more he worried about strangers' eyes seeing it. When he went back to his lodging house, he intended to sit by the fire and see if he could change horses. Most of the other people who dwelt with the Widow Kendall would lie abed by then.

His landlady herself remained awake when he came in. 'Give you good even,' she said.

'And you, my lady.' Shakespeare swept off his hat and gave her a bow Lieutenant de Vega might have admired. Jane Kendall smiled and simpered; she enjoyed being made much of.

But her smile disappeared when Shakespeare put a fresh chunk of wood on the fire. He'd known it would, and had hoped to sweeten her beforehand. No such luck. 'Master Will!' she said, her voice sharp with annoyance. 'With the winter so hard, have you any notion how dear wood's got?'

'In sooth, my lady, you'd have set it there yourself ere long,' Shakespeare said, as soothingly as he could.

'You'd be wood to spare wood, would you not?' He smiled, both to sweeten her further and because his wordplay pleased him.

It failed to please her, for she failed to notice it. 'Daft, he calls me,' she said to no one in particular-perhaps she was letting God know of his sins. 'Bought he the wood he spares not? Marry, he did not. Cared he what it cost? Marry, not that, either. But called he me wood? Marry, he did. He'll drive me to frenzy thus, to frenzy and to bed.' On that anticlimactic note, she left the parlor.

Shakespeare pushed a table and a stool up close to the fire. He took out the latest sheet of paper for Boudicca-no others-and set to work. A couple of minutes later, he yawned. Over the years, he'd got used to writing plays in odd moments snatched from other work and sleep.

Something brushed against his ankle. Before he could start, the cat said, 'Meow.'

'Good den, Mommet.' Shakespeare scratched the gray tabby behind the ears and stroked its back.

Mommet purred ecstatically. When Shakespeare stopped stroking the cat so he could write, it sat up on its hind legs and tapped his shin with a front paw, as ifto say, Why don't you go on?

He glanced down at it, a trifle uneasily. Would a common cat sit so? he wondered. Or hath this beast more wit than a common cat? Still purring, the animal twisted into an improbable pose and began licking its private parts and anus. Shakespeare laughed. Would a familiar do anything so undignified?

Cicely Sellis appeared in the doorway. 'God give you good even, Master Shakespeare,' she said-she certainly had no trouble pronouncing the name of the Lord, as witches were said to do. 'Have you seen-? Ah, there he is. Mommet!'

The cat went on licking itself as Shakespeare answered, 'And you, Mistress Sellis?'

She snapped her fingers and cooed. Mommet kept ignoring her. With a small, rueful shrug, she smiled at Shakespeare. 'He does as he would, not as I would.'

'Care killed a cat, or so they say,' the poet replied.

Laughing, the cunning woman said, 'If he die of care, he'll live forever. But how is it with you? Did he disturb you from your work? Do I?'

'No, and no,' Shakespeare said, the first no truthful, the second polite. 'I am well enough. How is't with yourself?'

'Well enough, as you say,' Cicely Sellis answered. 'Truly, I have been pleased to make your acquaintance, for your name I hear on everyone's lips.'

'You ken my creditors, then?' Shakespeare said. 'Better they should come to you for their fortunes than to me.'

'A thing I had not heard was that you were in debt.' She paused, then sent him a severe look. 'Oh. You quibble on a€?fortune.' '

'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