Ruled Britannia

room.

Richard Burbage came over to the poet. 'The don hath another new woman?'

Shakespeare only shrugged. 'I cannot say. That he would have her, though, I doubt not. She is the cunning woman, hight Cicely Sellis, of whom I may once or twice have spoke.'

Burbage's eyes got wide. 'The one dwelling in your lodging-house?'

'The same.'

'I hope that damned witch, that damned sorceress, hath wrought this hellish mischief unawares,' Burbage said, his deep voice somber.

'Of.?' Shakespeare let the title of the play hang unspoken in the air.

'Of that, and of other things,' the player answered.

'So I hope as well, but Cicely Sellis, methinks, is unaware of very little.'

'Will she discover to the Spaniard that which she knows?' Burbage asked nervously.

'I. think not.' Shakespeare wanted to shake his head and say such a thing was impossible, unimaginable. He wanted to, but knew too well he couldn't. He and Cicely Sellis had hardly spoken of things political. Few in occupied England said much about such things, except to those they knew would not betray them. Trusting the wrong man- or woman-was among the worst mistakes anyone could make.

'You think not?' Richard Burbage echoed, and Shakespeare nodded. Burbage persisted: 'No more than that can you say?' Now the poet did shake his head. Burbage looked very unhappy indeed, for which Shakespeare could not blame him. He asked, 'And will she too meet the smiler with the knife under the cloak?'

That made Shakespeare blink. He'd used Chaucer as a source for a couple of his plays, but hadn't known Burbage read The Canterbury Tales. Asking him about that, though, would wait for some other time. 'Why to me put you this question?' he said, speaking in a near-whisper to make sure no one else in the tiring room heard. 'I knew naught of poor Geoff's murther aforetimes, nor of Matt Quinn's, neither.'

Burbage said nothing. His silence felt more devastating than any words could have. Shakespeare grimaced and turned away. He'd told the truth. As so often happened, it did him no good at all.

And, when he got back to his lodging-house, he found Jane Kendall in a swivet. 'A Spaniard!' the widow hissed at him as soon as he walked through the door. 'She came hither with a Spaniard!' She crossed herself. Being sincerely Catholic, she preferred Isabella and Albert on the throne to Elizabeth, but had no great love for the stern soldiers who'd set them there. Such contradictions were anything but rare these days.

'Rest you easy, Mistress Kendall,' Shakespeare said; another upset was the last thing he needed. 'The don is known to me: a sweet-faced man; a proper man.'

'But he is a don,' the Widow Kendall said. 'Be he never so sweet-faced, he is a don, a busy meddling fiend.' She paused, then made the sign of the cross again. 'And I dare not even rate her for't, lest she do me a mischief with her foul witchery.' Her voice fell to a barely audible whisper: 'Is he her sweetheart?'

'I know not, not to a surety,' Shakespeare answered. 'He'd have it so, meseems, but oft yawns a gulf

'twixt what a man would and what a woman will.'

Jane Kendall sniffed. 'Saith she, I am a widow. And how many queans and callets and low harlots say the same?'

Shakespeare thought Cicely Sellis might be a great many things. A whore? Never. He didn't argue with the Widow Kendall, though. He'd long since seen there was no point to that. He simply headed for his bedchamber, saying, 'I needs must take pen and paper, and then I'm for the ordinary and supper and, God grant it, some tolerable verses.'

His landlady couldn't complain so loudly as was her custom, not when she feared the cunning woman and so also feared being overheard. That let him get out of the house and off to the ordinary. By the time he came back, Jane Kendall had gone to bed. So did he, not much later.

He was on his way up to the Theatre the next morning when Nicholas Skeres slid out of a side street and fell into step with him. 'Aroint thee!' Shakespeare exclaimed. 'I'd liefer see a black cat cross my path than thee. I am suspect for that we are acquainted, and known to be acquainted.'

Skeres didn't get angry, which disappointed Shakespeare-he longed for a quarrel, even a fight. 'I'll begone anon,' the clever but ill-favored man said. 'First, though, you must know at once: Lord Burghley is no more. He died yesternight, in's sleep.'

'God save us,' Shakespeare whispered. He'd expected the news since the last time he saw Nick Skeres.

Hearing it jolted him even so.

'God save us indeed,' Skeres answered now. 'God and good St. George save England-God and St.

George and you, Master Shakespeare.'

'I am sure as need be this cloth hath more threads than mine own,' Shakespeare said, and Nicholas Skeres did not contradict him. He went on, 'God grant Robert Cecil hath hold of them all.' Skeres nodded, then slipped away. Shakespeare trudged on towards the Theatre, alone with his thoughts.

Lope De Vega and Catalina Ibanez sat in a tavern in Westminster, drinking sweet Rhenish wine and glaring at each other across the table. 'You never take me anywhere,' Catalina complained. 'I might as well be in a convent, for all the fun I have with you.'

'That is not so,' Lope said indignantly. 'Did we not go to the bear-baiting only two nights ago? Was it not a fine spectacle?' Going back to Southwark gave him a twinge, but he'd done it for Catalina. Since she was, at the moment, his only lover, he'd feared no disaster. Nor had he suffered one. He'd had a good time, and thought she had, too.

Maybe she had, but she didn't show it now. 'Bear-baiting!' She laced the words with scorn. 'Where are the balls, where are the feasts, where are the masques Don Alejandro used to take me to? I ask you that-where are they? You'd better have a good answer for me, too.' Her eyes flashed dangerously.

With such patience as he could muster, de Vega answered, 'My dear, Don Alejandro was a nobleman, and a man newly come from Spain. Of course he got invited to these things. I am only a senior lieutenant.

I wish I were in great demand. Unfortunately, though. '

'Oh, why did I ever take up with you?' Catalina seemed more likely to be asking God than Lope.

Lope answered nonetheless: 'For love?'

'Love?' She waved away the very idea. 'When Queen Isabella tossed you that purse after we put on El mejor mozo de EspaA±a, I thought you were going places. But the only place you want to go is the English theatre.'

'I wish you spoke the language,' Lope said. 'There's so much to see, so much to admire, so much to learn.'

Catalina Ibanez yawned in his face. 'So much to be bored by. I've been bored every single minute since we started seeing each other.'

' Every minute?' Lope said. 'I think not, my dear.' If she'd faked her pleasure, she was a far better actress even than she'd shown on stage.

She didn't deign to respond to the sly dig. Instead, she said, 'I never should have told anyone you killed poor Don Alejandro in a fair fight. If you don't start treating me better, I'll tell people what really happened, there in that yard.'

'What really happened?' Lope didn't spring from his stool. He didn't raise his voice. He didn't so much as lean forward. Menace filled his words and manner even so. 'What do you mean? Tell me most precisely.'

Intent on herself, Catalina Ibanez didn't notice the menace, not at first. 'Why, how you lay in wait for him and. and. ' Her voice trailed away.

Too late. Too slow. Lope said, 'You will not do that.' He spoke as calmly as if he were telling her, The sun will come up tomorrow. 'If you think you can blackmail me, my sweet, you had better think again.

Do you remember what Don Alejandro's body looked like? That could be you.'

'You wouldn't d. ' But Catalina once more failed to finish her sentence. Lope might. What would stop him? He'd already done it to Don Alejandro de Recalde.

'Do you want to try me? Do you want to find out what I would or wouldn't do?' Lope asked. 'Go right ahead,