]_ Marry, come up!!! Struck William
Shakespear quotha! And who in the name of all the sluts and jades and
light-o'-loves and fly-by-nights that infest this palace of mine, may
William Shakespear be?

THE DARK LADY. Madam: he is but a player. Oh, I could have my hand
cut off--

QUEEN ELIZABETH. Belike you will, mistress. Have you bethought you
that I am like to have your head cut off as well?

THE DARK LADY. Will: save me. Oh, save me.

ELIZABETH. Save you! A likely savior, on my royal word! I had
thought this fellow at least an esquire; for I had hoped that even the
vilest of my ladies would not have dishonored my Court by wantoning
with a baseborn servant.

SHAKESPEAR. _[indignantly scrambling to his feet]_ Base-born! I, a
Shakespear of Stratford! I, whose mother was an Arden! baseborn! You
forget yourself, madam.

ELIZABETH. _[furious]_ S'blood! do I so? I will teach you--

THE DARK LADY. _[rising from her knees and throwing herself between
them]_ Will: in God's name anger her no further. It is death.
Madam: do not listen to him.

SHAKESPEAR. Not were it een to save your life, Mary, not to mention
mine own, will I flatter a monarch who forgets what is due to my
family. I deny not that my father was brought down to be a poor
bankrupt; but twas his gentle blood that was ever too generous for
trade. Never did he disown his debts. Tis true he paid them not; but
it is an attested truth that he gave bills for them; and twas those
bills, in the hands of base hucksters, that were his undoing.

ELIZABETH. _[grimly]_ The son of your father shall learn his place
in the presence of the daughter of Harry the Eighth.

SHAKESPEAR. _[swelling with intolerant importance]_ Name not that
inordinate man in the same breath with Stratford's worthiest alderman.
John Shakespear wedded but once: Harry Tudor was married six times.
You should blush to utter his name.

THE DARK LADY. | Will: for pity's sake-- | _crying out_

| | _together_

ELIZABETH. | Insolent dog-- |

SHAKESPEAR. _[cutting them short]_ How know you that King Harry was
indeed your father?

ELIZABETH. | Zounds! Now by--

| _[she stops to grind her teeth with rage]._

THE DARK LADY. | She will have me whipped through

| the streets. Oh God! Oh God!

SHAKESPEAR. Learn to know yourself better,