One by one, the other lodgers came back to the house. Shakespeare exchanged Easter greetings with Jack Street and Cicely Sellis and Sam King and the rest. When Jane Kendall wasn't looking, he tossed Mommet a bit of pork. The cat made the treat disappear, then stared up at him as if tosay, Well, where's the rest of it?
Everyone ate pork and bread and boiled parsnips smothered in melted cheese and drank the Widow Kendall's fresh-brewed ale. Shakespeare wondered if he were the only one not only eating meat but making a point of eating it where others could see. Nobody, now, could claim he was continuing the Lenten fast and waiting for what the old calendar reckoned to be Easter.
Jack Street patted his belly. 'Oh, that's monstrous fine,' the glazier said. 'Would I were so full every day.'
Sam King nodded. He still remained without steady work, so a feast like this had to be an even bigger treat for him than for the other man. Grinning at Street, he said, 'So it's the emptiness within you, then, that roars forth when you sleep?'
That made everyone laugh-everyone but the glazier, who asked, 'What mean you?'
'Why, your snoring, man,' King said. 'What else?'
'What?' Jack Street shook his head. 'I snore not.'
Despite making every night hideous for his fellow lodgers-and, very likely, for their neighbors to either side as well-he meant it. The more the others tried to convince him he did indeed snore, the less willing he was to believe it. 'Let's to the church once more,' Sam King said, 'and I'll take oath on the Gospel there.'
Street shook his head again. 'Nay, I'd not have you forsworn for the sake of a jape.'
'Tell truth and shame the Devil, Master Street: you
' 'Tis not the many oaths that make the truth, but the plain single vow that is vowed true-and I vow, I snore not.' Jack Street was beginning to sound angry. He gulped down his mug of ale, then reached for the pitcher to pour it full again.
Shakespeare began to wish Sam King had kept his mouth shut. The silence that hovered round the feasters was distinctly uncomfortable. If Street didn't want to believe he snored, how could the rest of them persuade him? They couldn't, but they knew the truth too well to be content with his denials, no matter how vigorous. This quarrel was liable to fester and burst out again weeks from now.
Cicely Sellis drew out the chain she wore around her neck. It had a sparkling pendant at the end of it, one that had been hidden in the valley between her breasts. The pendant caught firelight and torchlight as she swung it in a small arc, back and forth, back and forth. 'Be easy, Master Street,' she said in a soft, soothing voice. 'Be easy. No cause for wrath. Be easy.'
'And why should I, when all mock and fleer at me?' the glazier said.
The cunning woman didn't answer directly. She kept swinging that pendant in the same slow, steady rhythm. Ever so slightly, she shook her head. 'By no means, Master Street,' she said, still quietly. 'We are your friends here. We are all your friends here. No one seeks to do you harm.'
'Methought otherwise,' Street said, but less belligerently than he'd spoken before. His eyes followed the cheap glass pendant as it moved. His head began to go back and forth at the same rate. Shakespeare had trouble keeping his eyes off the pendant, too, but he managed. Jack Street didn't even try.
'No one seeks to do you harm,' Cicely Sellis repeated.
Sam King made as if to speak. Shakespeare used his long legs to kick the young man under the table.
Something out of the ordinary was going on here. He didn't know what, but he didn't want to see the spell broken. Not till that phrase crossed his mind did he wonder whether he'd been wise to kick King after all.
Cicely Sellis went on as she had before: 'All's well, Master Street. Naught's amiss. No need for fury.
Hear you me?'
'I hear.' Street's voice came from far away, as if he heard with but half an ear. His eyes, his head, still followed the pendant's motion, though he didn't seem to know they were doing it. When he reached for his mug of ale, he did so without looking away from the sparkling glass.
'Good.' The cunning woman let the shiny pendant go back and forth for another minute or so, then asked, 'Hear you me?' once more as she kept on swinging it.
'I hear,' Street said, even more distantly than before.
'Then hear also there's no cause for fuss, no reason to recall the warm words just past, no purpose to holding 'em in your memory.'
'No cause for fuss,' Jack Street echoed dreamily. 'No reason to recall. No purpose to holding.'
'E'en so.' Cicely Sellis nodded. 'Shall it be as I ask of you, then?'
'It shall be so.' The glazier tried to nod, but the motion of the pendant still held him captive.
'Good. Let it be so, then, and fret no more on't.' Cicely Sellis stopped swinging the bauble, and tucked it away again. When she spoke once more, her voice was loud and brisk: 'Would you pass me the pitcher of ale, Master Street? I'm fain for another mug myself.'
'Eh?' Street started, as if suddenly wakened. 'Oh, certes, Mistress Sellis. Here you are.' He gave her the pitcher. With a chuckle, he said, 'Belike you'll hold it better than I, for what I drank mounted straight to my head. Methought I dozed at table. I have had a dream, past the wit of man to say what dream it was; man had as well snore as go about to expound this dream. Methought I was-there is no man can tell what. And methought I had-but man is but a sleepy fool, if he will offer to say what methought I had.'
'I'd drink somewhat of ale myself, Mistress Sellis, when you have poured your fill,' Shakespeare said.
Nodding, the cunning woman passed him the pitcher. He filled his mug, too, then quickly emptied it. Jack Street gave no sign of remembering the argument over whether he snored. He talked, he laughed, he joked. How had Cicely Sellis managed that?
Sam King leaned forward to take the pitcher after Shakespeare finished with it. The young man's eyes were wide and staring as he poured golden ale into his mug. He mouthed something across the table at Shakespeare. The poet raised an eyebrow, not having got it. King mouthed the words again, more exaggeratedly than before: 'She's a witch.'
That was indeed the other name for a cunning woman. Even so, Shakespeare kicked King under the table again. Some names were better left unspoken. And King did keep quiet after that. But the fear never left his eyes.
After the feast, Shakespeare stooped to stroke Mommet. The cat arched its back and purred. 'You please him,' Cicely Sellis said.
'Haply he'll fetch me a mouse or rat, then, as token of's praise,' Shakespeare answered. Mommet twisted to scratch behind one ear. Shakespeare thought he saw a flea fly free, but couldn't be sure: a flea on a rammed-earth floor simply disappeared. Mommet went on scratching.
With a smile, the cunning woman said, 'You ken cats well.' Shakespeare was the only lodger who spoke to her-or, for that matter, even acknowledged she was alive and in the house. If she noticed, she gave no sign of it.
In a low voice, he said, 'You made them afeard.' In an even lower voice, he added, 'You made
'Wherefore, Master Shakespeare?'
'Wherefore?' Shakespeare still held his voice down, but couldn't hold the anger from it-anger and fear often being two sides of the same coin. 'Why else but for your show of witchery?'
'Witchery?' Cicely Sellis started to laugh, but checked herself when she saw how serious he was. 'Thank you I be in sooth a witch?'
'I know not,' he answered. 'By my halidom, I know not. But this I know: no one else dwelling here hath the least doubt.' He shook his head. 'No, I mistake me. You are yet clean in Jack Street's eyes, for he recalleth naught of what you worked on him.'
That got through to her. Her mouth tightened. The lines that ran to either corner of it filled with shadow, making her suddenly seem five years older, maybe more. Slowly, she said, 'I but sought to forestall a foolish quarrel.'
'And so you did-but at what cost?' Shakespeare's eyes flicked towards Sam King, who seemed to have set to work getting drunk. 'Would you have the English Inquisition put you to the question?'
Cicely Sellis' gaze followed the poet's. 'He'd not blab,' she said, but her voice held no conviction.
