Ruled Britannia

and Matt Quinn.'

'Tisick?' the poet exclaimed. 'You style it so?'

'Certes,' Kemp said innocently. 'A surfeit of iron in the gullet, was't not?'

'Away, away.' That was Jack Hungerford. Even Kemp took the tireman seriously. He slouched off.

Hungerford said, 'Out of your clothes, Master Will, and into costume, for the apparel oft proclaims the man.'

'Have I time for the change?' Shakespeare asked, for he would appear in the second scene of Thomas Dekker's comedy.

'You have, sir, an you use it 'stead of talking back,' Hungerford said severely. Without another word, Shakespeare donned the silk and scarlet the tireman gave him.

Not the smallest miracle of the day, at least to him, was that he did remember his lines. He even got laughs for some of them. When he came back on stage to take his bows after the play was done, he felt as dizzy as if he'd spent too long dancing round a maypole: too much had happened too fast that day.

Afterwards, as he exchanged the gorgeous costume for his ordinary clothes, Burbage came up to him and said, 'We did fear you'd found misfortune-or misfortune had found you. Why so late?'

'De Vega yesterday slew Marlowe outside my lodging-house,' Shakespeare answered wearily. 'A man need not see far into a millstone to wonder why Kit was come thither. The dons this morning gave me an escort of soldiery to their barracks, that they might enquire into what matters he carried in's mind.'

'Marry!' Burbage muttered. His proud, fleshy face went pale. 'And you said?'

'Why, that I knew not, the which is only truth.' Whose ears besides Richard Burbage's were listening?

Shakespeare let them hear nothing different from what he'd told de Vega and GuzmA?n. He added, 'By my troth, I knew not that poor Marlowe was returned to London.'

'Nor I,' Burbage agreed. He too played for other ears-Shakespeare had told him Marlowe was back.

Liars both, they smiled at each other.

When Shakespeare got back to his lodging-house after the performance, the Widow Kendall gave him an even warmer welcome than his fellow players had. 'Oh, Master Will, I thought you sped!' she cried.

'An the dons seize a man, but seldom returneth he.'

'I am here. I am hale.' Shakespeare bowed, as if to prove he'd undergone no crippling torture. ' 'Twas but a misfortunate misunderstanding.'

'Misunderstanding, forsooth!' Jane Kendall exclaimed. 'A misunderstanding like to prove your death.'

She poked him with a pudgy forefinger. 'And all centering on the accursed sodomite, that Marlowe, the which Mistress Sellis' Spaniard did slay in the street like a cur-dog this day just past.'

Before Shakespeare could answer, the door to Cicely Sellis' room opened. Out came the cunning woman, with a plump, worried-looking Englishman. Mommet wove around her ankles. 'Fear not, sir, and trust God,' she told her client. 'He will provide.'

'May it be so, my lady,' he said, as if she were a noblewoman. Bobbing a nod to Shakespeare and the Widow Kendall, he hurried out into the gathering gloom.

After he'd closed the door behind him, Cicely Sellis said, 'Lieutenant de Vega is not my Spaniard, Mistress Kendall. And, though he'd fain make me his Englishwoman, I am not that, neither.'

Jane Kendall signed herself. 'By my halidom, Mistress Sellis, I–I meant no harm,' she stammered. '

'Twas but a-a manner of speaking.' She brightened. 'Yes, that's it-a manner of speaking.'

'Ay, belike.' The cunning woman's words said she accepted that. Her tone said something else altogether. But then, as her cat went over to Shakespeare and rubbed against his leg, she gave him a smile full of what he thought to be unfeigned gladness. 'Like Mistress Kendall, right pleased am I to see you here, to see you well, once more.'

'I do own I am right pleased once more to come hither,' Shakespeare answered. He wondered how Cicely Sellis could have known what he and their landlady were talking about. She had, after all, been behind a closed door. Were her ears as keen as that? Shakespeare supposed it was-just-possible. He stooped to scratch the corner of Mommet's jaw. The cat pushed its head into his hand and purred louder.

'Have a care,' Cicely Sellis said. 'The game is not played out.' She sounded almost oracular, as she had that one time in the parlor when she didn't recall what she'd said after saying it.

'I am but a player and somewhat of a poet,' Shakespeare said. 'I'd not play at subtle games.' He wondered if she'd remark on the difference between would and will. Instead, and to his relief, she only nodded.

He ducked into his bedchamber, got his writing tools and the new play-his own play! — he was working on, and went off to the ordinary for supper. 'Will!' Kate cried when he came through the door.

'Dear-beloved Will!' The serving woman threw herself into his arms and kissed him.

'Did I know it roused such affections in thee, I'd have the Spaniards seize me every day,' Shakespeare said. That made a couple of men who were already eating chuckle. It made Kate pretend to box his ears.

After he'd supped, after he'd written, after the last of the other customers had left the ordinary, she took him up to her cramped little room. They both made love with something like desperation. 'Oh, fond Will, what's to become of thee?' she said. 'What's to become of us?'

Wanting to give her some soothing lie, he found he couldn't. 'I know not,' he said. After a moment, he added, 'Ere long, though, I shall.We shall.' One way or another, he thought, but did not say that. He caressed her instead.

'I fear for thee,' she whispered.

'I fear for me,' he answered. 'But I needs must go on; this road hath no turning, the which I could not use e'en an it had.'

'What mean'st thou?' Kate asked.

'I will not tell thee, lest I harm thee in the telling. Soon enough, thou'lt know.' Shakespeare got up and quickly dressed. As he opened the door to go, he added another handful of words: 'Come what may, remember me.' He closed the door behind him.

When he got back to the lodging-house, he put a couple of chunks of wood on the fire to fight the night chill. The Widow Kendall had gone to bed, and couldn't scold him. From the room where Shakespeare would eventually sleep, Jack Street's snores reverberated. The poet waited till the fresh wood was burning brightly, then sat down in front of the fire and got to work.

He wasn't unduly surprised to hear a door open a few minutes later, or to see Cicely Sellis-and Mommet- come out into the parlor. 'Give you good even,' he said, nodding to the cunning woman.

'Good den to you,' she answered, and sat on a stool while the cat prowled the room. 'Do I disturb you?'

'By your being, now and again. By your being here'-Shakespeare gave her a wry smile and shook his head-'nay. I am enough bemoiled in toils and coils to. ' His voice trailed away. He'd already said as much as he could say-probably too much.

Cicely Sellis gave him a grave nod, as if she knew exactly what he was talking about. Perhaps she did, for she said, 'The matter of the dons, and of Master Marlowe cut down like a dog in the street.' It did not sound like a question.

Shakespeare eyed her. How much had she heard from Lope de Vega? Whatever she'd heard, what did she think about it? He desperately needed to know, and dared not ask. Instead, he sat silent, waiting to hear what she said next.

Her shrug was small and sad. 'You misdoubt me. So many on small acquaintance gladly entrust me with their all, yet you misdoubt me. Alack the heavy day.'

'I may do only as I do,' Shakespeare answered. 'Did I say more-' Now he broke off sharply, shaking his head. That was too much, too.

'Peradventure you are wiser than the many,' the cunning woman said. And yet, from her expression, she'd found out most of what she wanted to know. Shakespeare wondered how much his stumbles and sudden silences had told her. She went on, 'Think what you will, I mean you no harm, nor England, neither.' Before he could find any sort of answer to that, she clucked to Mommet. The cat came like a well-trained dog. With a murmured, 'Good night,' she went back into her room.

Shakespeare got very little work done after that.