Ruled Britannia

'God grant you be right,' Shakespeare said, wondering if God would grant a witch any such thing. 'But you put me in fear, and I am a man who earns his bread spinning fables. Nay more-I am a man who struts the stage, who hath played a ghost, who hath known somewhat of strangeness. And, as I say, you affrighted me. What, then, of him?' His voice dropped to a whisper: 'And what too of the Widow Kendall?'

'I pay her, and well.' The cunning woman didn't try to hide her scorn. But her eyes, almost as green as her cat's, went back to Sam King. 'I'd liefer not seek a new lodging so soon again.'

'Again? Came you here, then, of a sudden?' Shakespeare asked.

Reluctantly, Cicely Sellis nodded. Shakespeare ground his teeth till a twinge from a molar warned he'd better do no more of that. Did the English Inquisition already know her name? Were inquisitors already poised to swoop down on this house? If they seized the cunning woman, would they seize her and no one else? Or would they also lay hold of everyone who'd had anything to do with her, to seek evidence against her and to learn what sort of heresy her acquaintances might harbor? Shakespeare didn't know the answer to that, but thought he could make a good guess.

'I meant no harm,' Cicely Sellis said, 'nor have I never worked none.'

'That you have purposed none-that I believe,' Shakespeare answered. 'What you have worked. '

He shrugged. He hoped she was right. He hoped so, yes, but he didn't believe it, no matter how much he wished he could.

Captain Baltasar Guzman looked disgusted. 'I have just learned Anthony Bacon has taken refuge at the court of King Christian IV,' he said.

Sure enough, that explained his sour expression. 'Something is rotten in the state of Denmark, then,'

Lope de Vega answered, 'if its King will give shelter to a proved sodomite. He shows himself to be no Christian, despite his name-only a God-cursed Lutheran heretic.'

Captain Guzman nodded. 'Yes, and yes, and yes. Every word you say is true, Senior Lieutenant, but none of your truth does us the least bit of good. Denmark and Sweden persist in their heresy, as they persist in being beyond our reach.'

'Yes, sir,' Lope agreed. 'A pity he escaped us. If you like, though, we can always go back and arrest his younger brother.'

'Nothing is proved against Francis Bacon, and the family has connections enough that we cannot proceed against him without proof. That too is a pity.' GuzmA?n sighed. After a moment, though, he brightened. 'Forty years ago, after Mary died and the English relapsed into heresy, who would have imagined we would grow strong enough to come here and correct them? In a generation or two, Denmark's turn, and Sweden's, may yet come.'

'God grant it be so.' De Vega crossed himself. So did his superior. With a grin, Lope went on, 'I confess, your Excellency, I won't be sorry to miss that Armada, though.'

'No, nor I.' But Guzman's eyes glowed with what Lope recognized after a moment as crusading zeal.

'But after Denmark and Sweden are brought back into the true and holy Catholic faith, what then? The Russians do not admit the supremacy of his Holiness the Pope.'

'Before I came to England, I'm not sure I'd ever even heard of Russia,' Lope said. 'Now I've talked to a few men who've been there. They say the weather in Russia is as much worse than it is here as the weather here is worse than Spain's. If that's so, God has already punished the Russians for their heresy.'

'It could be,' Guzman said. 'But it could also be that the men you talked to are liars. I don't think any place could have weather that bad.'

'You may be right, your Excellency.' Lope snapped his fingers, remembering something. 'With Anthony Bacon in Denmark, is there any word that Tom, the boy actor from Shakespeare's company at about the same time, is with him?'

'Let me see.' Baltasar GuzmA?n ran his finger down the report he'd received. He got close to the bottom before stopping and looking up. 'He is accompanied by a handsome youth, yes. No name given, but. '

'But we are well rid of two sodomites, and the Danes are welcome to them,' Lope said.

'We are well rid of them, yes, but better they should have gone to the gallows or the fire than to Denmark.' Captain GuzmA?n had no give in him.

And Lope could hardly disagree. 'You're right, of course, your Excellency. With some luck, we'll catch the next ones we flush from cover before they can flee.'

'Just so, Senior Lieutenant. Just exactly so.' Guzman set down the paper. 'Now you know my news.

What have you for me?'

'Shakespeare continues to make good progress on King Philip, ' de Vega answered. 'I wish your English were more fluent, sir. I'd quote you line after line that will live forever. The man is good. He is so very good, I find him intimidating when I sit down to write, even though he works in a different language.'

'As things are, spare me the quotations,' GuzmA?n said. 'If anything's more deadly than listening to verses you don't understand, I can't imagine what it is.' He steepled his fingertips and looked over them at Lope. 'You are writing again, then? In spite of the intimidation, I mean?'

'Yes, your Excellency.'

'Part of me says I should congratulate you,' Baltasar GuzmA?n observed. 'Part of me, though, believes I'm not keeping you busy enough. With everything else you have to do, how do you find time to set pen to paper?'

GuzmA?n had a habit of asking dangerous questions. He also had a habit of asking them so they didn't sound dangerous unless his intended victim listened carefully. Otherwise, a man could easily launch into a disastrous reply without realizing what he'd done till too late. Here, Lope recognized the trap. He said, 'I will answer that in two ways, your Excellency. First, a man who will write does not find time to do it. He makes time to do it, even if that means sleeping less or eating faster. And second, sir, lately I've had more help from Diego than I've been used to getting.'

'Yes, Enrique mentioned something about that to me,' GuzmA?n said. 'I would have thought you needed a miracle to get Diego to do even half the work a proper servant should. How did you manage it?'

'Maybe I was lucky. Maybe Diego saw the light,' Lope answered, not wanting to admit his blackmail.

'Or maybe it's simply spring, and the sun is waking him as it does the frogs and the snakes and the dormice and all the other creatures that sleep through winter.'

'A pretty phrase, and a pretty conceit,' Captain Guzman said with a laugh. 'But Diego has been your servant a long time now, and he's always been just as sleepy and lazy in the summertime as he has with snow on the ground. What's the difference now?'

'Maybe he's finally seen the error of his ways,' de Vega replied.

'It could be. The only way he was likely to see such a thing, though, it seems to me, was up the barrel of a pistol,' GuzmA?n said. Lope didn't answer. His superior shrugged. 'All right, if you want to keep a secret, you may keep a secret, I suppose. But do tell me, since you are writing, what are you writing about?'

By the way he leaned towards Lope, he was more interested than he wanted to let on. He'd always held his enthusiasm for Lope's plays under tight rein. Maybe, though, he really enjoyed them more than he showed. Lope said, 'I'm calling this one El mejor mozo de EspaA±a.'

' The Best Boy in Spain'?' Captain Guzman echoed. 'What's it about, a waiter?'

'No, no, no, no, no.' Lope shook his head. 'The best boy in Spain is Ferdinand of Aragon, who married Isabella and made Spain one kingdom. I told you, your Excellency-Shakespeare's rubbing off on me.

He's writing a play about history, and so am I.'

'As long as you don't start writing one in English,' GuzmA?n said.

'That, no.' De Vega threw his hands in the air at the mere idea. 'I would not care to work in a language where rhymes are so hard to come by and rhythms so irregular. Shakespeare is clever enough in English-just how splendid he would be if he wrote in Spanish frightens me.'

'Well, he doesn't, so don't worry your head about it,' Captain GuzmA?n said-easier advice for him to give than for Lope to take. But he went on, 'I did very much enjoy your last play, the one about the lady who was a nitwit.'

'For which I thank you, your Excellency,' Lope said.