Ruled Britannia

by Harry Turtledove

  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 do snore of nights," Shakespeare said.

  " '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 me afeard."

  "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.

  "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 acquain
tances 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.

  "If this next one is as good, it should have a bigger audience than Spanish soldiers stranded in England,"

  his superior said. "Write another good play, Senior Lieutenant, and I will do what I can to get both of them published in Spain."

  " Senor! " Lope exclaimed. Baltasar Guzman, being both rich and well connected, could surely arrange publication as easily as he could snap his fingers. Lope's heart thudded in his chest. He'd dreamt of a chance like that, but knew dreams to be only dreams. To see that one might come true. "I am your servant, your Excellency! And I would be honored-you have no idea how honored I would be-were you to become my patrA?n." He realized he was babbling, but couldn't help it. What would I do, for the chance to have my plays published? Almost anything.

  GuzmA?n smiled. Yes, he knew what power he wielded with such promises. "Write well, Senior Lieutenant. Write well, and make sure the Englishman writes well, too. I cannot tell you to neglect your other duties. I wish I could, but
I cannot."

  "I understand, sir." De Vega was quick to offer sympathy to a man who offered him the immortality of print. He knew Captain Guzman was saying, Do everything I tell you to do, and then do this on your own. Normally, he would have howled about how unfair that was. But when his superior dangled the prospect of publication before him.

  I am a fish, swimming in the stream. I know that tempting worm may have a hook in it. I know, but I have to bite it anyway, for oh, dear God, I am so very hungry.

  Shakespeare looked at what he'd written. Slowly, he nodded. The ordinary was quiet. He had the place almost to himself, for most of the folk who'd eaten supper there had long since left for home.

  He had the ordinary so much to himself, in fact, that he'd dared work on Boudicca here, which he seldom did.

  And now. Ceremoniously, he inked his pen one last time and, in large letters, wrote a last word at the bottom of the page. Finis.

  " 'Sblood," he muttered in weary amazement. "Never thought I to finish't." Even now, he half expected the Spaniards or the English Inquisition to burst in and drag him away in irons.

  But all that happened was that Kate asked, "What said you, Master Will?"

  "Naught worth hearing, believe you me." Shakespeare folded his papers so no untoward eye might fall on them. "I did but now set down the ending for a tragedy o'er which I've labored long."

  "Good for you, then," the serving woman answered. "What's it called, and when will your company perform it?"

  "I know not," he told her.

  "You know not what it's called?"

  "Nay," Shakespeare said impatiently. Too late, he realized she was teasing, and made a face at her. "I know not when we'll give it." He avoided telling her the title. She wouldn't know what it meant-no one without Latin would-but she might remember it, and an inquisitor might be able to tear it out of her.

  Shakespeare hadn't steeped himself in conspiracy his whole life long, as men like Robert Cecil and Nick Skeres had done, but he could see the advantages to keeping to himself anything that might prove dangerous if anyone else knew it.