Ruled Britannia

better.'

'And will you turn your back on Mistress IbaA±ez, cleaving only to me?' she asked.

With any other woman, he would have babbled promises, knowing they were lies. With Cicely Sellis, that seemed less than wise. What would she do if she caught him out? What could she do? Do you really want to find out? Lope asked himself, and knew he didn't. He sighed and shook his head. 'Nay, I doubt I shall,' he answered. His smile was crooked. 'I thank God I am as honest as any man living that is a young man, and no honester than I.'

The cunning woman smiled, too. 'Every man hath his fault, and honesty is yours?' she suggested.

Yes, she had a dangerous tongue. And if it was dangerous in one sense, what might it do in another?

Lope made himself stop his lewd imaginings while he tried to figure out how to reply to that. At last, he said, 'Doubt truth to be a liar, but never doubt I love.'

'What? Me?' Now Cicely Sellis paused. After a moment, she wagged a finger at him. 'Nay, you said that not. You are clever, sir-haply, too clever by half.'

'I could love thee. I would love thee,' de Vega said.

'But not me alone,' she said. It wasn't a question. She waited to see if Lope would deny it. When he didn't, she smiled once more and shook her head. 'I'd not give all of my love for the part of another's-would not nor will not. Gladly would I be your friend, and as gladly be no more.'

'Shall I beg thee?' Lope made as if to go to one knee in the muddy street. Laughing, Cicely Sellis gestured that he should stay on his feet. 'Shall I serenade thee?' He strummed an imaginary lute and began to sing in Spanish.

'Give over!' she said with another laugh. 'Shall the tiger change his stripes? I think not. Were I myself a different jade, I'd say, come, woo me, woo me, for I am in a holiday humor, and like enough to consent.

But, being all of mine own, I'll not be but part of someone else's liking.'

She sounded annoyingly like Lucy Watkins. 'I am your friend, then,' Lope said, knowing he'd get no more this day. 'Those you make friends, and give your heart to, keep their friendship under their own life's key.'

'Betimes,' the cunning woman said. 'Betimes, but not so oft as we'd fain have't.' She offered up what at first sounded like a prayer:

'Grant I may never prove so fond,

To trust man on his oath or bond;

Or a keeper with my freedom,

Or my friends, if I should need 'em. Amen.'

' Aii! ' he said, wincing. Few men saw the world so sardonically, and even fewer women.

'I must away.' Cicely Sellis scooped up her cat-Mommet, that was the beast's name-and set it on her shoulder, where it had perched when Lope first met her. As she started up Bishopsgate-towards the gate itself, the direction opposite to his-she added, 'God give you good. friends.'

'And you, lady,' he called after her. 'And you.' He wanted to turn around and follow her. Only the certainty that that, right now, would cost him even her tenuous friendship kept him walking on into London, his feet dragging reluctantly through the dirt at every step.

William Shakespeare watched from the side of the stage as Lieutenant de Vega, as Juan de Idiaquez, declaimed what amounted to his epitaph for Philip II:

' Fair Spain ne'er had a king until his time.

Virtue he had, deserving to command:

His brandish'd sword did blind men with his beams;

His arms spread wider than a dragon's wings;

His sparkling eyes, replete with wrathful fire,

More dazzled and drove back his enemies

Than mid-day sun bent against their faces.

What should I say? his deeds exceed all speech:

He ne'er lift up his hand but conquered.' '

To Shakespeare's astonishment, the Spaniard, after delivering his lines, covered his face with his hands and wept. 'Here, what's toward?' Shakespeare called, hurrying towards him.

Lope de Vega looked up at him, tears streaming unashamed from his eyes. 'The beauty of your words hath pierced me to the heart,' he answered. 'Their beauty, ay, and their truth. For truly great Philip dies, and much dies with him. Spain shall be fatherless henceforth.'

'Truly, Spain shall be fatherless henceforth,' Shakespeare murmured, turning the line to the iambic pentameter of blank verse. He said it over again, then nodded. 'Gramercy, Lieutenant. I shall append that to the end of your speech.' He made a leg at Lope. 'And I congratulate you: your first line in English.'

Actually, de Vega had made only four feet of the line, but Shakespeare wasn't inclined to quibble there.

Several of the players clapped their hands. Lope grinned and bowed. But Matthew Quinn, who played a Roman soldier named Decius in Boudicca, told Shakespeare, 'Think an hour more; then, if your confidence grow strong on you, you'll leave it in place.'

Sudden silence slammed down inside the Theatre. Shakespeare hoped his own jaw didn't drop too far.

The first line and a half were taken straight from the hired man's part, while the last five words were the sort of half-line of blank verse any player could make up in his sleep.

Blank verse sounded like natural speech. Sounding like natural speech was its reason for being. Lope didn't, wouldn't, couldn't know the words came from Boudicca. But everyone else did, and the Spaniard did notice the dismay on the stage. 'Is somewhat amiss?' he asked.

'No, naught.' Shakespeare hoped he sounded convincing. 'Merely a dumb-show: ay, an ass-head; a stuffed man; a very dull fool-in sooth, a most imperceiverant thing.'

'I do not follow,' Lope said.

Quinn did, entirely too well. 'You breeder of dire events!' he shouted, his fat face purpling. 'You sneaking fellow! You still and dumb-discoursive devil that tempts most cunningly!' He didn't quite come out and scream that Shakespeare was a traitor, but he didn't miss by much, either.

'Long-tongued babbling gossip!' Shakespeare retorted. 'Damnable box of envy!'

'Enough!' Richard Burbage cried. 'Hold! Give over, you rabble of vile confederates, or answer to me.'

He folded one hand into a massive fist.

Shakespeare fell silent. He'd already said too much. So had Quinn-much too much. And so, for that matter, had Burbage. The hired man, periwig slightly askew, looked ready to say much more. But Burbage advanced on him, that fist drawn back and ready to fly. Quinn thought better of it.

Lope laughed. 'You are a band of brothers, and fight like it,' he said.

'E'en so.' Shakespeare laughed, too, he hoped convincingly. 'And now, meseems, we should ready ourselves for the day's play. We shall resume King Philip on the morrow, or the day after.'

'Be it so, then.' Lope's voice held regret. 'Would we might work more now, but I understand you must set the play at hand before the play to come.' He touched the brim of his hat. 'This day's rehearsal done, I must away, having other duties. Give you good morrow, gentles.' He hurried out of the Theatre.

As soon as he was gone, Shakespeare and Matt Quinn started screaming at each other again. 'Hold!'

Burbage shouted again. He pointed at the hired man. 'You, sirrah, played the sparrow astrut afore the cat. That he doth not pounce means not that he may not pounce.' His finger swung towards Shakespeare. 'And you, sirrah, strook too hard, putting us in danger worse than any sprung of Master Quinn's folly. Had the Spaniard commenced to dig. But he did not, and all's well. We go forward, then, with such caution as we may find.'

'Your pardon, I pray you,' Shakespeare said. He turned to Matthew Quinn. More reluctantly, he also said, ' Your pardon, I pray,' to the hired player.

'Let it go,' Quinn answered. 'When we play is time enough for these lines you have writ me.'