Ink and Steel

Act III, scene ix

By my troth and maidenhead I would not be a queen.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, King Henry VIII

The Queen’s withdrawing room, revealed through an opening door, wasn’t as grand as Will had expected; rather a quiet sunlit place appointed with rich paintings and more of the extravagant carpets, these in harvest-gold and winter-white, with touches of emerald and sapphire in the plumed weave. A small table stood in the center of it, a cushioned chair at either end, a service of silver-gilt and golden plates laid on linen as white as Morgan’s sheets.

He smiled at the memory and executed a sweeping bow, resisting the urge to reach into his pocket and fumble the scrap of iron nail Kit had pressed upon him before the appointment. The Mebd stood before the window, her hair gleaming under her veil; she turned to acknowledge him. “Gentle William. You brighten our court. Pray rise.”

“Your Highness is most gracious.”

They were seated, and attendants Will could not see poured wine and served them both. Nervousness robbed him of his appetite: his knife shivered on the richly decorated plate. The Queen herself ate delicately; he was surprised to see that what she cut so tidily and placed in her mouth was wine and capon, and not flower petals and dew.

“You hunger not, Master Shakespeare?”

“I am curious,” he admitted with whatever charm he could muster. And now I’ve met three Queens,he thought. And swallowed a broader grin as he also thought, and bedded one.

“Curious?”

“Curious what Your Highness would have of me.”

She smiled and laid her knife across the plate. “Perhaps you and Sir Christofer would consent to honor us with a play.

“A collaboration? We’ve done it before, Your Highness. I’m sure Kit would agree.”

“We have faith in your ability to convince him,” she said.

Will picked up his goblet as she contemplated her words. “We were favorably impressed with your Midsummer Night’s Dream. Although it saddened us to see your Queen in the end humiliated and defeated by her unsavory husband. It seems to us that she, Titania, had the right of it, and that is not merely our sympathy for a sister Queen.”

Will frowned, tasting the unfairness of his own life in the irony of his words. “It is the experience of this poet, Your Highness, that just women are often misruled by their husbands.”

“And just peoples misruled by their Princes, by extension?”

Too late, he saw the trap. He nodded. “And yet such is the way of the world: many a man abuses the trust of a woman who deserves better, and yet they and the world are so made that they must accept the dominion of men.”

“Many a Prince abuses the trust of his subjects, and yet how few men are born to rule?” She rolled her silver-handled knife between fingers white and soft as cambric. “And yet thou dost serve a woman who is also a Prince. Is she deserving of thy sacrifices?”

“Your Highness, aye.”

“Why is that?”

“Because…” He shrugged. “Because she has made her own sacrifices, to keep her people safe.”

“Ah.” The Mebd closed eyes that had shifted from green to lavender and then to gray. When she blinked them open, they were the color of thistles under gold lashes worthy of a Hero. “So the sacrifices a husband makes for his wife earn her loyalty. If he is worthy of her.”

He lowered his eyes, unable to support her inquiry, and dissected a morsel upon his plate, sopping the meat in sweet-spiced gravy. The flavor cloyed.

“And are you worthy of your wife, Master Shakespeare?”

“No,” he answered, without looking up. “Madam, I am not.”

“And yet she serves you as you serve your Prince.”

“Aye.”

“This is what we adore our poets for.” He was surprised by the tenderness in her voice into glancing up again. “They lie with such honesty.”

“Lie, Your Highness?”

“Aye.” A smile on her lips like petals. “Sweet William is a flower. Didst know it?”

“Aye, Your Highness.”

“Perhaps we shall have some sown.”

Will nodded, dizzied. Emboldened, a little, by the frankness of her conversation, he asked a question. “Your Highness. Like Gloriana, you have no King.”

“I will be subject to no man,” she answered. “Even a God.”

“And yet from what Morgan tells me, Faerie is subject to Hell and its lord.”

“Women,” she answered, extending her white-clad wrist to pour him wine with her own pale, delicate hands, “have long learned to simper in the presence of their conquerors. And not only women, Master Poet.”

“No,” he answered, tipping his goblet to her in salute before he drank. “Not women alone.”

“We are glad,” the Mebd said, “you have agreed to dine with us today. We trust you will never find yourself bound in an unpleasant subjugation.”

“Your Highness.”

“Yes.” She smiled as she touched his sleeve. “I am.”