With bending adoration worship her?
She's vicious; and, your partial selves confess,
Aspires to the height of all impiety;
Therefore 'tis fitter I should reverence
The thatched houses where the Britons dwell
In careless mirth; where the blest household gods
See nought but chaste and simple purity.
'Tis not high power that makes a place divine,
Nor that men from gods derive their line;
But sacred thoughts, in holy bosoms stor'd,
Make people noble, and the place ador'd.'
What would the dons say if they heard those lines? What will the dons say when they hear those lines? He laughed. He couldn't help himself. Give me leave to doubt they will admire them.
Cicely Sellis misunderstood the reason for his mirth, if mirth it was. She sounded angry as she said, 'If you credit yourself not, who will credit you in your despite?'
'Not the dons, methinks,' he answered.
'But have I not seen 'em 'mongst the groundlings?' she returned. 'And have I not seen you yourself in converse earnest with 'em? Come they to the Theatre for that they may dispraise you?'
Damn you, Lieutenant de Vega, Shakespeare thought, not for the first time. Not only did the man threaten to discover his treason whenever he appeared, but now he'd just cost him an argument Shakespeare's fury at the Spaniard was all the greater for being so completely irrational.
When he did not respond, the cunning woman smiled a smile that told him she knew she'd won. She said,
'When the dons and their women come to see me, shall I ask 'em how they think on you?'
'The dons. come to see you, Mistress Sellis?' Shakespeare said slowly.
'In good sooth, they do,' she answered. 'Why should they not? Be they not men like other men? Have they not fears like other men? Sicknesses like other men? Fear not their doxies they are with child, or poxed, or both at once? Ay, they see me. Some o' the dons'd liefer go to the swarthy wandering Egyptians, whom in their own land they have also, but they see me.'
'Very well. I believe't. An it please you, though, I would not have my name in your mouth, no, nor in the Spaniards' ears neither.'
Shakespeare thought he spoke quietly, calmly. But Mommet's fur puffed up along his back. The cat's eyes, reflecting the firelight, flared like torches as it hissed and spat. By the way it stood between Shakespeare and its mistress, it might have been a watchdog defending its home.
'Easy, my poppet, my chick, easy.' Cicely Sellis bent and stroked the cat. Little by little, its fur settled.
Once it began to purr once more, she looked up at Shakespeare. 'Fear not. It shall be as you desire.'
'For which I thank you.'
'I'll leave you to't, then,' she said, scooping Mommet up into her arms. 'Good night and good fortune.'
She spoke as if she could bestow the latter. Shakespeare wished someone could. He would gladly take it wherever it came from.
VII
Lope De Vega looked up from the paper. 'I pray you, forgive me, Master Shakespeare,' he said, 'but your character is not easy for one unaccustomed to it.'
'You are not the first to tell me so,' the English poet answered, 'and I thus conclude the stricture holds some truth.'
They sat on the edge of the stage in the Theatre, legs dangling down towards the dirt where the groundlings would stand. Behind them, swords clashed as players practiced their moves for the afternoon's show. Looking over his shoulder, Lope could tell at a glance which of them had used a blade in earnest and which only strutted on the stage.
But that was not his worry. The nearly illegible words on the sheet in his left hand were. He pointed to one passage that had, once he'd deciphered it, particularly pleased him. 'This is your heretic Queen Elizabeth, speaking to his Most Catholic Majesty's commander as she goes to the Tower?'
Shakespeare nodded. 'Just so.'
'It hath the ring of truth,' Lope said, and began to read:
' Stay, Spanish brethren! Gracious conqueror,
Victorious Parma, rue the tears I shed,
A mother's tears in passion for her land:
And if thy Spain were ever dear to thee,
O! think England to be as dear to me.
Sufficeth not that I am brought hither
To beautify thy triumphs and thy might,
Captive to thee and to thy Spanish yoke,
But must my folk be slaughter'd in the streets,
For valiant doings in their country's cause?
O! if to fight for lord and commonweal
Were piety in thine, it is in these.' '
'Will it serve?' Shakespeare asked anxiously.
'Most excellent well,' Lope replied at once. 'It is, in sooth, a fine touch, her pleading for mercy thus.
How came you to shape it so?'
'I bethought me of what she might tell King Philip himself, did he come to London, then made her speak to his general those same words,' Shakespeare said.
'Ah.' Sitting, Lope couldn't bow, but did take off his hat and incline his head to show how much the answer pleased him. 'Most clever. And then the Duke of Parma's reply is perfect-perfect, I tell you.' He read again:
' At mine uncle's bidding, I spare your life,
For mercy is above this sceptr'd sway:
'Tis mighty in the mightiest; it becomes
The throned monarch better than his crown;
It is enthroned in the hearts of kings,
And blesseth him that gives and him that takes.' '
'If it please you, I am content,' the Englishman murmured.
'Please me? You are too modest, sir!' Lope cried. While Shakespeare-modestly-shook his head, the Spaniard went on, 'Would King Philip might read these wondrous words you write in his behalf. As I live, he'd praise 'em. Know you the Escorial, outside Madrid?'
'I have heard of't,' Shakespeare said.
' 'Twill be his Most Catholic Majesty's monument forevermore,' Lope said. 'And your
'May he have many years,' Shakespeare said in a low voice. 'May this play remain for years unstaged.'
Lope crossed himself. 'Yes, may it be so, though I fear me the day will come sooner than that.' He tapped the sheet of paper with a fingernail. 'I shall take back to my superiors a report most excellent of this.'
'Gramercy,' the Englishman told him.
