Ruled Britannia

X

A sharp cough brought Lope de Vega up short. He looked back towards Shakespeare, who advanced across the stage of the Theatre. "You attend not, Master de Vega," Shakespeare said severely.

"That was your cue to say forth your lines, and it passed you by. I had not known you as such an unperfect actor on the stage, who with his fear is put besides his part."

"Nor am I such." Lope bowed apology. "You pardon, sir, I pray you. 'Twas not fear put me out."

"What then?" Shakespeare asked, still frowning. "Whate'er the reason, you must improve, else you'll appear not. Would you have the groundlings pelt you with marrows and beetroots and apples gone all wormy? Would you have them outshout the action, crying, a€?O Jesu, he does it as like one of these harlotry players as ever I see'?" The Englishman's voice climbed to a mocking falsetto.

"No and no and no." Lope shook his head. That harlotry struck too close to the mark. "I fear me I find myself distracted-a matter having naught to do with yourself or with your most excellent King Philip."

He wondered how much more he would have to say. But Shakespeare, after cocking his head to one side, got to the nub of it in two words: "A woman?"

"Yes, a woman," Lope answered in some relief. "She hath made promises, made them and then kept them not. And yet she may. This being so, I am torn 'twixt hope and fury."

He hadn't thought Catalina IbaA±ez would play him for a fool. He hadn't thought she could play him for a fool. But Don Alejandro's mistress had been all warmth and seductiveness when she didn't have to deliver, and had either kept from seeing him alone or been frustratingly cool when she did. It drove Lope mad: too mad to realize it might have been intended to do just that.

Will Kemp laughed. The clown pitched his voice high, as Shakespeare had: "If thou thinkest I am too quickly won, I'll frown and be perverse and say thee nay. So thou wilt woo." He let it drop back to its usual register: "Sits the wind so?"

He'd summed it up more neatly than de Vega had on his own. "Yes, just so," Lope answered. "What am I to do?"

"You are to have your lines as Master IdiA?quez by heart, even an she be heartless," Shakespeare told him. "Let not your honor as a man touch your honor as a player, or no player shall you be."

"I understand," Lope said contritely. "You have reason, seA±or. My private woe should not unsettle this your play."

"As for the wench, a boot in the bum may haply work wonders, as hath been known aforetimes," Kemp said. "And if you cannot cure her by the foot, belike you'll do't by the yard."

He leered. Shakespeare snorted. So did the rest of the Englishmen in earshot. Lope scratched his head.

He spoke English well, but every so often something flew past him. He had the feeling this was one of those times.

"I do know my lines," he said, ignoring what he couldn't follow. "Hear me, if you will:?This cardinal,

Though from an humble stock, undoubtedly

Was fashioned to much honour. From his cradle

He was a scholar, and a ripe and good one:

Exceeding wise, fair-spoken, and persuading;

Lofty and sour to them that lov'd him not,

But to those men that sought him sweet as summer.

And, to add greater honours to his age

Than man could give him, he died fearing God.' "

"In sooth, you have them," Shakespeare agreed. "It were better, though, to bring them forth when called for."

"And so I shall," Lope promised. "Before God, I shall."

"Before God, ay-we are ever before God," Will Kemp said. "But can you stand and deliver before the groundlings? There's the rub."

He couldn't mean he thought the groundlings a more important and more difficult audience than God.

could he? No one could be that blasphemous. The English Inquisition would get its hooks into a man who dared say anything of the sort-would get them in and never let go again. An ordinary man, fetched before the inquisitors, would have no defense. But a player, Lope realized, just might. He could say he'd put the thought of his craft ahead of his soul for a moment. He probably wouldn't escape scot-free, but might avoid the worst.

"Let us try again," Shakespeare said. "The more we work afore ourselves alone, the better we shall seem when the Theatre's full."

"Or not, an God will it so," Kemp said. "The best-rehearsed company will now and again make a hash of things."

"I have myself seen the same, more often than I should wish," Lope agreed.

"Ay, certes. So have we all," Shakespeare said. "But a company less than well rehearsed will make a hash of things more than now and again. Thus I tell you, once more into the breach, dear friends, once more; or close the show up with our bungled lines. Disguise fair nature with hard-summoned art. When the trumpet's blast blows in your ears, then imitate the action of the Spaniard."

"I need not imitate," Lope pointed out.

Shakespeare made a leg at him. "Indeed not, Lieutenant. But as for you others, I'd see you stand like greyhounds in the slips, straining upon the start. Follow your spirit, and upon your cue cry, a€?God for Philip! Sweet Spain and Saint James!' "

Richard Burbage had left the stage, probably for the jakes. Returning, he clapped his hands and said, "By God, Will, I've gone off to war with words less heartening ringing in my ears."

"Never mind war," Shakespeare said. "Let us instead piece together this King Philip. Take your places.

We shall once more essay the scene."

This time, Lope remembered his lines. He sent them ringing out into the empty Theatre. As he spoke and gestured, he tried to imagine the place full of noisy, excited people, all straining forward to catch his every word-and all ready to pelt him with whatever they had handy if he came up dry, or simply if they didn't care for what he had to say. From everything he'd seen, English audiences had less mercy in them than their Spanish counterparts. When they scented weakness, they went straight for the kill.

Here, though, Shakespeare seemed satisfied. "Enough for now, methinks," he said. "God grant we have time aplenty for further work herewith. The day's play, however, we must give at two o' the clock. That wherein we should be good betimes needs must yield pride of place to that wherein we must be good anon. Master Lope, gramercy for your work this day."

"The pleasure is mine." De Vega touched a finger to the broad brim of his hat in salute. The phrase was an English translation of a Spanish commonplace, but he meant it. "You-all of you-show me every day I am here what a company of players should be."

" 'Steeth, Master Lope, I take it as an insult that anyone should style me an exemplar," Will Kemp growled. "Do you withdraw it, or will you give satisfaction?"

For a moment, de Vega thought he'd truly been challenged. Then he thought he might draw on the clown, to cure him of such insolence once for all. But, after a pause that couldn't have spanned two heartbeats, he drew himself up as if affronted. "I, give satisfaction, sirrah? Do you take me for a woman?"

The players laughed. Will Kemp's grin showed uneven teeth. "By my troth, no," he answered. "D'you take me for Kit Marlowe?"

More laughter arose, the baying laughter of men mocking one another's prowess. "I am wounded," de Vega said, and clapped both hands over his heart.

"Which only shows you know not where Kit'd wound you," Kemp said, and clapped both his hands over his backside. That coarse, baying laughter redoubled.

Lope joined it. He'd admired-still did admire-Marlowe the poet. It was as if Marlowe the sodomite were some different creature, divorced from the other. Life would have been simpler were that true. But they both made up different parts of the same man. De Vega wondered, not for the first time, how God could instill such great gifts and such a great sin into the same flesh and spirit. He sometimes thought God did such things to keep mortals from believing they understood Him and getting an exaggerated notion of their own cleverness.

Does Marlowe's fall, then, save other men from sins of their own? he wondered. If that be so, does it not make Marlowe like our Lord? Lope shook his head. There was one bit of speculation his confessor would never hear. If it should reach an inquisitor's ears. No, Lope didn't want to think about that.

As Lord Westmorland's Men began going through the play they'd put on when the Theatre opened, de Vega walked out, swung up onto his horse, and rode back to London. This time, no one in the crowded tenements outside the wall troubled him: not beyond the usual catcalls and curses from behind his back.

Ignoring those was always easier; trying to track down the folk who loosed them led only to frustration and fury.

At Bishopsgate, the Irish guards also recognized him for a Spaniard. From them, he got respect instead of scorn. Their sergeant, an immense man, made a clumsy leg at him. The common soldiers murmured in what might have been Irish or might have been what they reckoned English. Either way, it was unintelligible to Lope. He tipped his hat and rode on.

Not far inside the gate, he was struck by the spectacle of a handsome woman coming out of an ordinary with a cat perched on her left shoulder as if it were a sailor's bird. He reined in. "Give you good day, my lady," he said, "and why, I pray you, sits the beast there?"

She gave him a measuring look. "Good day to you, sir," she answered. Lope realized then she was a few years older than he; he hadn't noticed at first glance, as he would have with most women. Her smile held a certain challenge. "As for Mommet here-well, porquA© no? "

Of course she would know him for a Spaniard by his dress, his looks, his accent. He laughed. "Why not indeed? What an extraordinary beast, though, to stay where you choose to set it."

The cat-Mommet-sent him a slit-eyed green stare a good deal more dismissive than its mistress'. Its yawn displayed needle teeth and a pink tongue. The woman said, "What cat is not an extraordinary beast? Come to that, what man is not an extraordinary beast?"

Lope blinked. He was in love with Lucy Watkins. He was also in love with Catalina IbaA±ez, a love that tormented his soul-among other things-all the more because it remained as yet unconsummated. Even so, a woman who spoke in riddles could not help but intrigue him. Love of the body, yes. Love of the spirit-yes, that, too. But also love of the mind, especially for a man with a leaping, darting mind like Lope's, a love neither of his two present amours returned.

"Who are you?" he asked urgently.

He wondered if she would tell him. A modest woman wouldn't have. But then, a modest woman wouldn't have spoken to him in the street at all. "I'm called Cicely Sellis," she answered, with no hesitation he noted. "And you, sir, are.?"

With another woman, or with a woman of another sort, he would have given his rank and the rolling grandeur of his full name. To this one, he said only, "I am known as Lope de Vega." He couldn't help bowing in the saddle and adding, "Very much at your service, Mistress Sellis."

Mommet yawned again, as if to say how little his service meant. Cicely Sellis dropped him a token curtsy, careful not to dislodge the cat. "You are Master Shakespeare's friend," she said.

He started to cross himself-it hadn't been a question, but a calm statement of fact. Arresting the gesture, he demanded, "How know you that?"

"No mystery." Amusement sparkled in her eyes. "His lodging-house and mine own are the same, and full many a time hath he spoke your name."

"Oh." Lope wanted to ask what Shakespeare had said about him. Regretfully, he decided that wouldn't be a good idea. With a nod, he urged his horse forward. "I hope to see you again, Mistress Sellis."

"May it be so," she said, and English spring truly came home to Lope.

Jack Hungerford showed Shakespeare a row of cheap, rusty helmets somewhat brightened by splashes of silver paint. "With feather plumes, Master Will, they serve passing well for Roman casques," the tireman said. "See you how the cheek pieces I've added help give 'em the seeming of antiquity?"

Shakespeare reached out and touched one of those cheek pieces. It was, as he'd expected, nothing but cut tin, hardly thicker than a leaf of paper. That didn't matter. It would look all right to the audience.

What the players wore and what the groundlings saw-or imagined they saw-were two very different things. He knew that. No one who'd ever gone on up on stage could help knowing it. Still.

"Can we not make it plainer who these Romans are, whom they personate?" he inquired.

Hungerford frowned. "They are Romans, not so?" He scratched his head.

"Ay, certes, they are Romans." Shakespeare drummed the fingers of his right hand on his hose. The tireman, who dealt in things, cared nothing for symbols. "But bethink you, Master Jack. They are Romans, yes. They are invaders, come to Britain to conquer her, to change for their own her ancient and ancestral usages. In the doing, they have cast down a Queen. " How many examples would he have to string together? How long before Jack Hungerford saw where he aimed? Would the tireman ever see it?

Scratching again, this time at the side of his chin, Hungerford spoke in thoughtful tones: "They fair put you in mind o' the dons, not so?"

"Even so, Master Jack! Even so!" Shakespeare wanted to kiss him. Hungerford had seen where he was going after all. "Can you devise somewhat wherewith they have at once the seeming of Romans and Spaniards both?"

"Well. I have me these morions here," Hungerford said doubtfully, pointing to a row of Spanish-style helmets below the "Roman" ones. "Haply I might make shift to give 'em a crest of feathers or horsehair, here along the comb, so. " He ran his finger from the front of a morion to the back to show what he meant.

"Yes! Most excellent indeed!" Shakespeare exclaimed. "By my troth, Master Jack, the very thing. At times, now, the Roman soldiery will be seen armored. Can this also call to mind the dons' equipage?"

"Oh, yes. Naught simpler there." Now that the tireman had the bit between his teeth, he could run. "A good English back-and-breast is like unto that which the Spaniards wear. An eagle daubed on the breast thereof should show the armor is purposed to stand for a Roman's, an't please you."

"Indeed-it pleases me greatly." Shakespeare nodded. "Now, one thing more. What have we here of queenly regalia?"

"Queenly.?" Even with bit between his teeth, Hungerford didn't change gaits quickly; he needed a moment to shift his thoughts from one path to another. But then he snapped his fingers. "Ah! I follow! For the lad who is to play. " He snapped his fingers again, this time in annoyance. "Beshrew me if I recall the name."

"Boudicca," Shakespeare said patiently. How many people these days knew of the Queen of the Iceni, defeated and dead more than fifteen hundred years? Only those who'd fought through the Annals.

Maybe his tragedy would change that. Then again, maybe it would never take the stage. But he had to go on as if he thought it would.

"Boudicca," Hungerford echoed. "A heathen appellation, if ever such there be. Well, what would you in aid of the garb purposed for that part, Master Will?"

"That it resemble a certain other deposed Queen's, as close as may be," Shakespeare answered.

He would not say the name. He didn't know why not. This conversation was already so manifestly treasonous, the name couldn't make it worse. But no one ever said it in today's England without a shiver of fear, without wondering who might be listening. He wondered if any girl child born after the summer of 1588 bore it. He had his doubts. He knew he wouldn't have given it to a little girl, not in an England ruled by Isabella and Albert. Maybe some folk were braver than he. No: certainly some folk were braver than he. But were any that brave, or that reckless?

Again, the tireman needed a heartbeat or two to catch up with him. "A certain other.?" Hungerford said, and then nodded. "Oh. Elizab. " He stopped. He would not say all of the name, either. His eyes widened. "I take your drift. Whatsoever we may lack, I can get for barter from other companies. They need not know our veritable intent, only that it is to garb a Queen."

"You may say Queen Mary, an't please you," Shakespeare said. "She hath some small part in King Philip."

"As she had some small part in King Philip his life," said Hungerford, who was old enough to remember when Mary and Philip had briefly shared the English throne. He nodded. "Ay, that will suit well enough, should any presume to make inquiry. Are you fain to have me give him a red wig and powder his face white, as was. her custom for some years?"

"However your wit may take you," Shakespeare answered. "The greater the semblance, though, the more likely the play to seize the auditors."

"Then I'll do't," Hungerford said.

"And one thing more, Master Jack," Shakespeare said earnestly. "Come what may, suffer not Lieutenant de Vega to learn aught of what's afoot, else all's ruined."

"You need not tell me that," the tireman replied. "D'you take more for a witling? A soft and dull-eyed fool?"

The poet shook his head. "By no means, sir. But the enterprise hath such weight and urgency, I'd liefer warn without need than need without giving warning. 'Swounds, I meant no offense, and cry your pardon for any I gave."

Hungerford smiled. "Rest easy. I am not one to hold anger to his inward self, cherishing the warmth like a man in January new-come to hearth and home. And you speak sooth: 'tis no game we play, unless you'd style thus dicing o'er the fate of kingdoms."

Shakespeare sighed with relief. He still had no guarantee Boudicca would come off well, or that it would do as Sir William Cecil hoped and help rouse England against the Spanish occupiers. He had no guarantee the play would even appear on stage. (That gave rise to a new worry. If Boudicca didn't appear, if King Philip did, how could he reclaim the written parts? Any of those, should a Spaniard see it, would be plenty to get him dragged to Tower Hill, hanged, cut down, drawn, quartered, and burnt. His danger didn't end if Boudicca failed to play. If anything, it got worse.) But if his tragedy of the British Queen did reach the stage, Jack Hungerford would do everything in his power to make it look the way it should. And the tireman took it seriously. He understood the stakes for which they were playing.

Haply I make a better poet than did Kit Marlowe, Shakespeare thought. But in all else he were better suited than I, being an intriguer and intelligencer born. "O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me."

He didn't realize he'd said that aloud till Hungerford completed the quotation for him: "Nevertheless, not as I will, but as Thou wilt."

Was this God's will? Shakespeare checked himself. That was the wrong question. Everything, surely, was God's will. But was it God's will that the uprising should go forward and succeed?

How can I know? Shakespeare sighed again, on a very different note. Almost groaning, he said

, "O God! That one might read the book of fate and see the revolution of the times."

"What fates impose, that men must needs abide," Hungerford said.

Shakespeare's nod was half glum, half exalted. "We have thrown our gloves to death himself, that there's no maculation in our hearts. If it be otherwise, if the canker of treason dwell in someone's bosom, we are all undone."

"Hanging and wiving go by destiny," the tireman said, a homely saw that would have made Shakespeare happier had his own marriage been better.

He left the tiring room and went out on stage, where rehearsal for Boudicca went on. Burbage, as Boudicca's brother-in-law Caratach, traded barbs with Will Kemp, who played Marcus, a Roman soldier now captured by the Iceni, and with Peter Baker, the boy playing Caratach's nephew, Hengo.

"Fill 'em more wine; give 'em full bowls.-

Which of you all now, in recompense of this good,

Dare but give me a sound knock in the battle?"

Burbage boomed the words: Caratach was a fierce, blustering soldier.

"Delicate captain,

To do thee a sufficient recompense,

I'll knock thy brains out,"

Kemp replied. Marcus' talk was far bolder than his performance. He mimed gobbling down food in front of him.

"By the gods, uncle, If his valour lie in's teeth, he's the most valiant," the boy playing Hengo jeered. He shook his fist at Will Kemp.

"Thou dar'st as well be damn'd: thou knock his brains out,

Thou skin of man! — Uncle, I will not hear this."

"Tie up your whelp," Kemp told Burbage, exactly as if he were a proud Roman in barbarous hands.

Peter Baker capered about in a well-acted transport of fury.

"Thou kill my uncle! Would I

Had but a sword for thy sake, thou dried dog!"

"What a mettle this little vermin carries," Will Kemp muttered.

"Kill mine uncle!" the boy screeched.

"He shall not, child," said Burbage, as Caratach.

"He cannot; he's a rogue,

An only eating rogue: kill my sweet uncle!

Oh, that I were a man!"

Peter Baker cried.

Will Kemp smirked.

"By this wine, which I

Will drink to Captain Junius, who loves

The Queen's most excellent Majesty's little daughter

Most sweetly and most fearfully, I will do it."

"Uncle, I'll kill him with a great pin," the youngster playing Hengo squeaked.

"No more, boy," Richard Burbage began. Before he could go on and drink to Kemp's Marcus in turn, the tireman's helper started whistling the bawdy tune of which he was so fond. Instantly, Peter Baker ran off the stage. Burbage went from fierce Caratach to majestic Philip by leaning forward a little, letting his belly droop down, and dropping his voice half an octave. Will Kemp was as quick to turn, chameleonlike, into a cardinal hounding the Mahometans of southern Spain: the drunken, lecherous Roman he had been was forgotten in the wink of an eye.

By the time Lope de Vega walked into the Theatre, what had been a rehearsal for Boudicca had metamorphosed into a rehearsal for King Philip. "Good morrow, gentles," the Spaniard called as he walked towards the stage. He waved to Shakespeare. "Give you good morrow, Master Will. You go on without me, is it not so?"

"A good day to you, Lieutenant," Shakespeare answered. "All of us must take our parts."

"That is so." Lope nodded. "Tell me something, an't please you."

"If I do know it, you shall know it," Shakespeare said. It sounded like a promise. But it was one he had no intention of keeping if de Vega wanted to know anything he shouldn't.

All Lope said, though, was, "Whensoever I come hither of late, some fellow in yon topmost gallery whistles the selfsame song. What is't? The music thereof quite likes me. Be there accompanying words?"

Shakespeare coughed. Richard Burbage kicked at the boards of the stage. Will Kemp guffawed. Still, Shakespeare could answer safely, so he did: "An I mind me aright, the ditty's named a€?A Man's Yard.' "

"Not a tailor's yard, nor a clothier's yard," Burbage added, perhaps helpfully. "Any man's yard."

"Ah?" Lope looked unenlightened. "Can you sing somewhat of't for me?"

That made Shakespeare cough again, cough and hesitate. Very little made Will Kemp hesitate. He sang out in a ringing baritone:

" a€?Rede me a riddle-what is this

You hold in your hand when you piss?

It is a kind of pleasing sting,

A pricking and a pleasant thing.

It is a stiff short fleshly pole,

That fits to stop a maiden's hole;

It is Venus' wanton staying wand

That ne'er had feet, and yet can stand.' "

He would have gone on, but Lope, grinning, held up a hand. " Basta," he said. "Enough; that sufficeth me.

And now, por Dios, I take your jape of a few days past. We have such songs also in Spanish." He too began to sing. Shakespeare followed a little of it; he knew Italian and French, which were cousins to Spanish, and had picked up some of the conquerors' tongue itself during their ten years in England. From what he got of it, it was indeed of the same sort as "A Man's Yard."

He held up his hand in turn. "This sport were better suited to the alehouse than the Theatre. What would you here, Lieutenant de Vega?"

"What would I?" Lope said "Why, only to see how you fare, my friend, and how your company fares."

He sat at the edge of the stage, his feet dangling down towards the dirt floor where the groundlings would stand come the afternoon. Shakespeare fought back a sigh. He wished the Spaniard had come for some specific reason. In that case, he would settle whatever needed settling and then leave. This way, he might stay all day, which meant no one could work on Boudicca all day.

"Every day that comes comes to decay a day's work in him," Will Kemp said. " 'Tis sweating labor, to bear such idleness so near the heart."

Twitting a Spaniard could be dangerous. The dons were touchy of what they called their honor. What an Englishman would pass off with a smile might send a Spaniard into a killing rage. Or, equally, it might not.

Lope inclined his head to the clown. "My body shall be idle whilst my wits race. Better thus than contrariwise, meseems."

"Call you me Contrariwise?" Kemp bowed in return. "At your service, sir."

"In sooth, you have ever been contrary to the wise," Burbage murmured.

The clown bowed to him, too. " Et tu, Brute? " he said, pronouncing the name of the noblest Roman as if it were the ordinary word brute. Burbage winced.

So did Shakespeare, but he couldn't resist piling quibble on quibble: "Let it not be bruited about that we are aught but contrariwise to idleness."

De Vega's gaze went from one of them to the next in turn. "You give a better show now than when the groundlings spend their pennies."

"I say two things to that," Will Kemp declared. " Imprimis, say I, piss on all those who spend their pennies here." Shakespeare and Burbage both groaned. Lope de Vega only looked puzzled again, as he had at the title of "A Man's Yard." Before anyone could explain the English phrase to him, Kemp went on, "And secundus, say I, 'tis no wonder we're better now. Come the play, he writes all the lines." He pointed at Shakespeare by thrusting his thumb out between his first two fingers, and added, "I care not a fig for him."

"Thou knew'st not what a fig meant, till thy mother taught it thee," Shakespeare retorted, giving back the gesture. "And would thou wert a figment now." Kemp flinched. Burbage clapped his hands. De Vega sat at the edge of the stage, smiling and waiting for the next exchange.

"By the Virgin and all the saints, my dear, I wish you had been there and understood the English,"

Lope told Catalina Ibanez. "They might have been fighting with rapiers, save only that their words pierced again and again without slaying, however much they might make a man wish he were dead."

Catalina shrugged. Her low-cut, tight-fitting bodice made a shrug worth watching. "From everything I've seen, actors are always bitchy," she said.

"No." He shook his head. "You make it less than it is. Could I have written this down as it was spoken, and then rendered it into Spanish-"

"It would probably sound petty and foolish," she broke in. "Such things always do, when they're not fresh." She looked at him from under lowered lashes. "Besides, Senior Lieutenant, did you bring me here to babble about mad Englishmen?"

"Certainly not, my beautiful one," Lope answered. "Oh, no. Certainly not." They sat side by side on a taffeta coverlet in the leafy shade of a small grove of willows in the yard by Whitehall, the yard given over to the Kings of Scotland whenever they chose to visit. No visit from King James seemed imminent, however much the Spaniards would have liked to see him fall into their hands. But the English kept up the yard and the buildings inside even so. Lope lifted a bottle. "More wine?"

"Why not?" Catalina answered. As he poured, a bird began to sing. She frowned. "What's that? I don't recognize the song."

"A seed warbler, I think," he answered. The name, necessarily, came out in English. "The bird does not dwell in Spain. I never heard it before I came here, either."

Catalina IbaA±ez listened for a little while, then tossed back the wine and shivered. That, for once, had nothing to do with nasty English weather. Summer was here at last. It wasn't a patch on summer in Madrid, but it was tolerable, perhaps a bit better than tolerable. Catalina said, "Even the birds here are foreigners. No wonder I always feel so alone."

"Alone?" Lope set his hand on hers. "Oh, no, sweetheart. How can you say such a thing, when you have. Don Alejandro?"

She looked over to him in surprise. She must have expected him to ask, How can you say such a thing, when you have me? Her nod showed a certain admiration, as if he'd made an unusual, thought-provoking move in a game of chess. Since he'd mentioned her keeper, she had to answer. And she did, with a toss of the head that sent her curls flying in pretty disarray. "Don Alejandro doesn't understand me," she said-an old gambit, but always a good one. "He's rich, he's important, but he has no idea what a woman wants."

Lope was neither rich nor important, and doubted he ever would be. As for the other. Slowly, he raised Catalina's hand to his lips. "What could a woman want," he murmured, "but to be adored?"

That was an old line, too. It didn't work precisely as he'd hoped. "Don Alejandro is the stingiest man in the world," Catalina went on, "and he doesn't give me presents or take me dancing or even"-she seemed to be reminding herself-"out on nice little picnics like this."

"Well," Lope said, "that is a pity." All at once, he began to wonder whether taking her on this nice little picnic had been such a good idea. She was beautiful, yes, undoubtedly, but was she any less mercenary than a scarred German soldier who sold his sword to the highest bidder and walked away if his pay fell in arrears?

Catalina seemed to realize she might have shown a card or two too many. She swayed towards him with melting eyes and said, "I'm so glad to go out anywhere at all, so very glad." She leaned closer yet.

To kiss her was the work of a moment. Altogether without thought, Lope did. Had he thought, he might have wondered who was doing what with whom, and for which reasons. But he'd never been in the habit of thinking around women. He'd hardly even imagined the possibility till his chance meeting with the odd Englishwoman with the cat. And so he kissed Catalina IbaA±ez, and things went on from there.

She sighed, deep in her throat, and twisted to press herself against him. "Ah, querido," she murmured when their lips parted at last. "You don't know how long I've wanted to do that."

"And I," Lope said. "Oh, yes, by God, and I." He kissed her again. Her mouth tasted of wine, but sweeter still.

Except for the twittering birds, they were all alone. The willow branches hung down almost to the ground, shielding them from prying eyes. The grass under the taffeta coverlet was long and soft and resilient.

Catalina slapped Lope's hands away a couple of times as he began to explore her, but it was only for show, and they both knew it. She giggled when he nibbled the side of her smooth white neck. The giggle turned to a soft, almost breathless sigh as he slid down so his tongue could tease a nipple.

She sighed again, not very much later, when he poised himself above her and thrust home, as if with the rapier. Her thighs clasped his flanks. Her arms squeezed him as if she never wanted to let him go. English summer, he discovered, was more than warm enough to work up a pleasant sweat, provided one found the right company.

"Oh, Lope!" Catalina gasped, just before his moment of joy. Then she let out a little mewling cry that oddly made him think of Mommet, Cicely Sellis' cat, even though he'd never heard Mommet make a sound. Her nails, sharp as little daggers, scored his back. He drove deep and spent himself.

Her mouth twisted in regret when he pulled out of her. But she quickly started putting herself to rights. De Vega got dressed, too. He reached out to pat her bare backside as she pulled up her drawers. "Even more than I imagined," he told her.

"Imagined?" She raised a hand to her face, as if to hide a blush, as if to say she couldn't imagine a man hungrily imagining making love to her.

"It was all I could do," he said. "It was. But no more." Had he been a few years younger, he would have laid her down on the taffeta coverlet and taken her again then and there. He sighed for lost youth. There would be other chances, though, and soon. And he would be seeing Lucy Watkins again before long. It wasn't as if he'd fallen out of love with her when he fell in love with Catalina IbaA±ez.

And what might that Englishwoman with the cat be like between the sheets? Lope hadn't thought about finding a lover older than himself since he was eighteen. For that one, he thought he would make an exception.

"We had better get you back," he said to Catalina, shaking his mind free of the women he wasn't with.

He gave the woman he was with a quick kiss. "I don't believe I ever enjoyed a picnic more."

"Ishould hope not." She drew herself up with touchy pride. Oh, yes-this one is all ice and fire, Lope thought. Never a dull moment with her around. He put the cork back in the wine bottle. He'd brought along a loaf of bread and a pot of honey, too. Honey and bread remained untouched. He smiled as he bundled them into the coverlet. I tasted better sweets than honey today.

Hand in hand, he and Catalina walked through the ankle-high grass of the yard no King of Scotland was likely to visit any time soon, towards the gate by which they'd come in. They'd gone about halfway from the willow grove when the gate opened. A tall, broad-shouldered man walked into the yard and strode purposefully towards them.

" Ay, madre de Dios! " Catalina Ibanez yelped. She dropped Lope's hand as if it were on fire. Under her paint, her face went white as milk. "It's Don Alejandro!"

Lope let the coverlet fall to the grass. The wine bottle clanked against the honey pot. He hoped they didn't break, but that was the least of his worries right now. His right hand fell to the hilt of his rapier.

He'd worn it as much for swank as on the off chance of trouble. Without it, he'd be a dead man now.

I may be a dead man anyhow. Don Alejandro went from purposeful walk to thudding trot. His rapier leaped free of its sheath. The long, slim, deadly blade glittered in the sun. "De Vega!" the nobleman bellowed. "Ten thousand demons from hell, de Vega, what are you doing with my woman?"

Had de Recalde come in a few minutes earlier, he would have seen for himself what Lope was doing. By Catalina's delighted response, the nobleman would have learned something, too. This seemed neither time nor place for that discussion. Lope

drew his own sword. But he gave as mild an answer as he could:

"Talking about the theatre."

"Liar! Dog! Son of a dog!" Don Alejandro shouted, and roared down on him like an avalanche. Steel clattered from steel. Sparks flew. Catalina screamed. "Shut up, you little puta!" Don Alejandro shouted.

"You're next!"

His first long, abrupt thrust almost pierced Lope's heart; de Vega barely managed to beat the blow aside.

He couldn't counter. Fast as a striking serpent, Don Alejandro thrust for his belly. Only a hasty backwards leap saved him from owning a second navel. And any puncture a couple of inches deep probably meant death, either from bleeding or, more slowly and painfully, from fever.

Don Alejandro de Recalde was a picture fencer, with a style as pure as any Lope had ever seen. He kept his blade in front of his body and poised to strike at every moment, and he was quick and strong.

He might have stepped out of a swordmaster's school and straight into the King of Scotland's yard. For their first few exchanges, Lope wondered how he could possibly come through the fight alive. And then, as he managed a thrust at Don Alejandro's belly and the nobleman beat his blade aside with a perfect parry, he suddenly smiled a most unpleasant smile.

His next thrust wasn't at Don Alejandro's midriff-it was at his face. Catalina's keeper turned that one, too, but not so elegantly, and he jerked his head back in a way no fencing master would have approved.

Lope's smile grew wider and nastier. "Don't do a lot of real righting, you say?" he panted.

"I say nothing to you, de Vega," de Recalde snarled, and bored in again. "Nothing!" Clang! Clang!

Clang! went their swords, as if they were battling it out up on stage.

But swordplay in real fighting was different from what went on with the groundlings cheering down below. It was different from what the fencing masters taught, too. Lope thrust at Don Alejandro's face again. This time, his foe didn't jerk away fast enough. The point pierced his cheek. The nobleman howled in pain. Blood ran down the side of his jaw. Catalina Ibanez shrieked.

"They don't show you that in school, do they?" Lope jeered. He knew perfectly well they didn't. Nobody included blows to the face in fencing exercises. They were too dangerous. Swordmasters who slaughtered their students or scarred them for life weren't likely to get much new business.

Don Alejandro tried to answer him, but blood poured from his lips instead of words. De Recalde was game. He kept on doing his best to skewer Lope. His best was alarmingly good-but not quite good enough.

Lope thrust at his head again, this time pinking his left ear. More blood flew. Don Alejandro shook his head and kept fighting. Both he and Lope ignored Catalina's screams.

Once more, Lope thought. He gave this thrust all the arm extension he had. His point pierced his opponent's right eye, pierced the flimsy bone behind, and penetrated deep into de Recalde's brain. With a grunt that seemed more surprise than pain, Don Alejandro toppled to the grass like a kicked-over sack of clothes. His rapier fell from fingers that could hold it no more. His feet drummed briefly, then were still.

A sudden stench said his bowels had let go. Catalina screamed one last time. She gulped to a stop, tears streaming down her face.

"Stupid bastard," Lope said wearily, tugging his sword free and plunging it into the ground to cleanse it.

"You never really tried to kill anyone before, did you? Well, by God, you won't try again, that's certain sure."

He wished he'd never killed anyone himself. But he'd fought his way to London after the Armada's army came ashore; if he hadn't killed a few Englishmen, they would most assuredly have killed him. He wished their souls a kind judgment from God-as he did now for Don Alejandro de Recalde's-but they were dead and he was alive and that was how he wanted it to be.

He turned to Catalina Ibanez. "Come on," he told her. "We have to let the authorities know what happened here. You are my witness I slew in self-defense."

She nodded. "You are my hero, my champion." she said. "You killed for my sake, for. for me." Tears still wet on her cheeks, she gave him a glance full of animal heat. Lope had never had a woman look at him that way for that reason. He hoped to heaven he never would again.

The night before, Shakespeare had fallen asleep to Jack Street's snores. Now he woke to them.

As he yawned and got out of bed, he wondered if he would ever be able to go to sleep without the glazier's racket after a couple of years of it. He'd got so very used to it, he had his doubts.

Sam King lay asleep in the third bed in their common bedchamber. Street's snoring had stopped bothering him, too. Shakespeare got out of his nightshirt and into doublet and hose. The early-morning sun leaking through closed shutters gave him plenty of light by which to dress. In summer, day swallowed half the night, not the other way round. He reveled in the daylight, and reveled in it more because he knew it would dwindle again as the seasons spun through their never-ending cycle.

A kettle of porridge bubbled over a low fire on the hearth. Shakespeare dipped out a bowlful to break his fast. He poured a mug of ale from a pitcher on the counter, then sat down to eat.

Cicely Sellis came out of her room a couple of minutes later, with Mommet walking around and between her feet. "Give you good day, Master Shakespeare," she said, and got herself breakfast, too. As she sat down on a stool across the table from the poet, the cat puddled himself on top of her shoes.

"Give you good morrow as well," Shakespeare answered. "I hope the world wags well for you?"

"Passing well," she said. "How fares your friend, the Spaniard de Vega?"

"These past few days, I've seen him not," Shakespeare said. Then he started violently. He had all he could do not to sign himself with the cross. "How knew you we have an acquaintance?" What witch's trick told you so? was what he meant. As with crossing himself, though, he lacked the nerve for that.

But Cicely Sellis laughed a merry laugh. "No bell, book, and candle: by God I give you my oath." She showed no fear about using the holy sign herself. She never had. Laughing still, she went on, "For one thing, you have in my hearing spake his name, though peradventure you recall it not. For another, not long since I met the man himself in Bishopsgate Street-I daresay Mommet on my shoulder drew his eye. A man of much charm and wit, and much an admirer of yours."

Shakespeare only half heard her, even less after she showed she hadn't used the black arts to learn of Lope de Vega. Normally, he would have savored praise, and savored Cicely Sellis' company, too. Now he scraped his bowl clean, gulped his ale, mumbled, "I must away," and all but fled the lodging house.

She'd convinced him she hadn't used witchcraft this time. She hadn't come close to convincing him she was no witch.

Someone two houses down flung the contents of a very full chamber pot from an upstairs window out into the street. Even though it didn't come close to splashing Shakespeare, the stench made him wrinkle his nose. That stench also took the edge off his pleasure in the fine day. He hurried up towards Bishopsgate, hoping he'd get no more unpleasant surprises.

People streamed into London from the tenements outside the walls, to look for work, to buy and sell, or to drink. Fewer folk went in the other direction. "Whither away so early, now?" an Irish gallowglass asked as Shakespeare headed out. He made as if to step forward and bar the poet's path.

"I'm for the Theatre," Shakespeare answered.

"Faith, are you indeed?" the Irishman said. "Riddle me why, then. I'm after knowing these plays run of afternoons."

"In sooth, they do," Shakespeare agreed. "But we needs must practice or ever we play, else were the show not worth the seeing."

The Irishman scratched at his red whiskers. He scratched hard, caught something, and squashed it between his two thumbnails. Seeing that made Shakespeare want to scratch, too. Maybe getting rid of the vermin cheered the gallowglass, for he waved Shakespeare forward. "Pass on."

"Gramercy. God give you good day." Not least from fear, Shakespeare was always polite around the savages from the western island.

Out beyond the wall, the tenements were as crowded and squalid as anything within, maybe worse.

Shakespeare strutted up Shoreditch High Street towards the Theatre as fiercely as he could. Footpads had never set on him, and he hoped a show of belligerency from a good-sized man would keep making them choose other targets.

Only the night watchman was at the Theatre when Shakespeare got there. He sat on a stool, his back against the wall by the outer entrance, his hat down over his eyes to shield him from the sunlight. Soft snores rose from him. Shakespeare hoped he'd been more alert during the night.

He paused in front of the entrance and coughed. The watchman's snores changed rhythm. Shakespeare coughed again, louder this time. The other man yawned and stretched and raised his hat enough to see out from under the brim. "Oh, 'tis you, Master Will," he said around a yawn that showed bad teeth.

"Good day, sir. Go on in, an't please you. You're first here today."

"How know you that?" Like Pilate asking, What is truth? Shakespeare didn't want an answer. He nodded and went into the Theatre. The watchman pulled his hat down again. He was ready for more sleep.

He turned out to be right; no one from the company had gone past him while he dozed. Shakespeare had the Theatre all to himself. He looked up to the wide ring of heaven. A kestrel flashed by overhead. The little hawk never had any doubts of what prey nature intended it to take, nor of how to go about the tasks nature had appointed it. For his part, Shakespeare had never imagined he might envy a bird's pure simplicities. He'd never imagined it, but it was so.

While he stood with his feet on the hard-packed earth (it smelled faintly of spilt beer; despite the sweepers, nutshells, bits of bread, a broken clay pipe, and other refuse still lay all around), he stretched out his arms full length and wistfully flapped them. He envied the kestrel its ability to fly out of trouble, too.

From behind him, someone said, "Lo! Here the gentle lark, weary of rest, from his moist cabinet mounts on high, and wakes the morning."

Shakespeare spun round. There stood Richard Burbage, a grin on his handsome, fleshy face. "I am no songbird," Shakespeare said. "But the crow doth sing as sweetly as the lark when neither is attended."

"No songbird? Haply not, not in your own person," Burbage said. "But verily you give others music, killing care and grief of heart. Orpheus with his lute made trees bow themselves when he did sing. So you as well, e'en if it be through the throats of others."

"You are gracious," Shakespeare said, "and I thank you for't."

"How d'you come here, the hour being so young?" Burbage asked. "I had looked to be alone yet some little while, as usually chances."

"How, Dick? I'll tell you how." Shakespeare spoke of how Cicely Sellis had asked him about Lieutenant de Vega. "She ghasted me out of doors betimes, nor am I shamed to own it."

"And yet 'twas no witchery that you should speak, or even that they should meet. Passing strange, that."

Burbage snapped his fingers. "I mind me we need not fear dear Master Lope for some little while, at the least."

"Wherefore say you so?" Shakespeare asked. "If Dame Rumor run abroad, she hath not caught me up."

"I supped yesternight at an ordinary close by the dons' barracks. There was talk in Spanish amongst 'em, and in English back and forth 'twixt the tapman and the drawer, the which I might follow. De Vega hath slain a man, a noble Spaniard."

" 'Swounds!" Shakespeare said. "Shall he be hanged for't?"

Burbage shook his head. "Methinks not. 'Twas in some affray over a woman."

"With Master de Vega? You astound me," Shakespeare said. Burbage laughed. He too knew-he could hardly help knowing-Lope de Vega's passion for passionate conquests. Shakespeare went on, "Still and all, that could be murther, did he lie in wait for his rival or smite from behind."

"Why, so it could," Burbage admitted. "I had not thought on it, the Spaniard seeming a tolerable man of his hands, but haply you have the right of't. I know not, nor could I glean it from the talk I overheard. But he shan't come hither soon, an I mistake me not."

"May it be so," Shakespeare said. "A few days' time to rehearse our Boudicca in peace were a blessing."

"Ay. Naught compares to moving about the stage for the refining of bits of business, and breaking off in the midst of a scene jars hardly less than breaking off in the midst with a wench," Burbage said.

"A fit figure, in view of what's passed." Shakespeare inclined his head.

"I'm certain sure she had a fit figure," Burbage said. "The Spaniard hath an eye for 'em."

"Hold the tireman's helper on high," Shakespeare warned. "If Master Lope return of a sudden, we dare not be caught out."

"That I know, Will," Burbage said heavily. "By my troth, that I know."

Lope De Vega stood at stiff attention before Captain Baltasar GuzmA?n. "Before God, sir, it was self-defense, nothing else," he declared. A pen scratched across paper off to one side: Guzman's servant, Enrique, writing down every word he said. "Don Alejandro came at me sword in hand. If I hadn't defended myself, some other officer would be taking his statement now."

Some other officer might be taking his statement now, Lope thought. Or, then again, maybe not.

Had Don Alejandro de Recalde slain him, how much of an inquiry would there have been? He was only a lieutenant, after all, from a family not particularly eminent. As likely as not, they would have buried him, patted Don Alejandro on the back for his fine swordsmanship, and gone on about their business.

Baltasar GuzmA?n, now, said nothing at all. He sat behind his desk, staring up at de Vega. "You will have questioned my companion," Lope said stiffly. " Senorita Ibanez's account should match mine."

"And so it does," Guzman admitted, "or you would be in a great deal more trouble than you are."

"Your Excellency, if Senorita Ibanez's account does match mine, I should be in no trouble at all."

"Unfortunately, Senior Lieutenant, it is not quite so simple. What were you doing with the woman when Don Alejandro discovered the two of you alone together?"

"We'd had a picnic, sir," Lope said stolidly. "We were leaving the yard for the Kings of Scotland when Don Alejandro burst in." Scratch, scratch, scratch went the quill in Enrique's clever

right hand.

"A picnic?" One of Captain GuzmA?n's eyebrows leaped.

"Yes, your Excellency. A picnic. The soldiers who came after the fight took the coverlet we sat on, and the wine bottle we drank from, and the mugs, and the bread and honey we had there."

"One-or two-can do other things on a coverlet besides sitting."

"No doubt, sir. We were having a picnic," Lope said. Scratch, scratch, scratch.

"Will you see Senorita Ibanez again?" Guzman asked.

"How can I know, your Excellency?" de Vega answered. "She is. an attractive woman, and her protector-her former protector-is now unfortunately deceased."

"Yes. Most unfortunately. I saw the corpse," Captain GuzmA?n said. "When you fight a man, you don't do things by halves, do you, Senior Lieutenant?"

"Sir, he came at me bellowing like a bull. If I hadn't fought to kill, he would have killed me," Lope replied.

That was not only true, it was what he had to say to keep himself safe. Guzman's respect, though, however reluctantly granted, warmed him, for his superior was a formidable man with a rapier in his hand. De Vega added, "He was good with a blade-very quick, very strong, very clean-but purely a school fighter."

"Ah." Captain Guzman nodded. "So that's how it was, eh? No, you don't learn those strokes in school.

You learn them when you put your life on the line-or else you don't, as Don Alejandro didn't."

"What will become of me, senor?" Lope asked.

"Well, I believe your story-or most of it, anyhow," GuzmA?n answered. "As far as I'm concerned, you remain on duty. But you must understand, when you kill a nobleman the matter doesn't end with your immediate superior."

"Yes, sir," Lope said resignedly.

"It could be worse, you know," Baltasar GuzmA?n told him. "You could have killed de Recalde back in Spain. Then you wouldn't have to worry about your superiors alone. You'd have everyone in his clan hot for your blood, and all his friends, too. He doesn't have many kinsmen here in England, and he wasn't here long enough to make a lot of friends."

"No doubt you're right, sir." The same thing had occurred to Lope. "Is there anything more, sir?"

"Not from me, as I told you. But I also tell you something else: if you fall head over heels in love with Catalina IbaA±ez in the next few weeks, tongues will wag. I don't suppose anyone will be able to prove a thing, but tongues will wag."

"Nothing I can do about that, your Excellency," Lope replied.

"You could try keeping away from her," Captain GuzmA?n said. Lope stood mute. GuzmA?n sighed.

"No point to puncturing a man if you can't enjoy yourself afterwards: is that what you're thinking?"

"Your Excellency, do you question my honor?" Lope asked, very softly.

Had GuzmA?n said yes, things would have taken a different turn. But the captain impatiently shook his head. "No, no, no, by no means. The IbaA±ez is only a mistress, not a wife. How can anyone lose honor over a mistress? But even the touchiest man will see there is a difference between honor and gossip and scandal."

"Very well, senor. I thank you for the advice."

GuzmA?n sighed. "By which you mean you have no intention of taking it. Well, you've already proved you're not shy about carving a man so the undertakers can't pretty him up. That will make some people think twice. Go on, get back to work, but bear in mind you may be summoned by others besides me."

Sure enough, Lope was in his room working on a report of doings at the Theatre when Enrique knocked on his door. Captain GuzmA?n's servant said, "Begging your pardon, Senior Lieutenant, but my principal has just received an order from Don Diego Flores de ValdA©s at Westminster. You are to report to him at once for questioning in the matter of Don Alejandro."

"Thank you, Enrique." Lope sighed and rose from the stool where he'd perched. "I'll go, of course."

What else could he do when summoned by the commandant of Spanish forces in England?

As he was heading out of the barracks, his own servant came up the corridor towards him. " Senor, there is an English constable outside, a man named Strawberry." He said it with care. "He would speak to you. So says a soldier who knows a little English."

"A constable?" De Vega shook his head. "I am called before Don Diego Flores de ValdA©s. I have no time for this no-account Englishman now. I would have no time for the Queen and King of England now.

Go back and tell the fellow, whoever he is, that I am very sorry, but I will have to see him some other day."

"I speak no English!" Diego wailed.

"Well, get that soldier again, then," Lope said impatiently, hurrying off towards the stables. "You found out what the constable wanted. He can find out what you want."

When he rode off towards Westminster, he got a glimpse of his servant and a large, middle-aged Englishman standing nose to nose in the street, each shouting at the other, neither understanding a word the other said. Maybe the English-speaking soldier had gone away. Lope smiled. Diego needed such exercise to keep his blood flowing. As for the other man, that Strawberry. Well, who cared about an English constable, anyhow?

Once Lope got to Westminster, he had to find Don Diego Flores de ValdA©s' office, which he'd visited only once. He knew he was getting close when someone called out to him: a thin, weedy, pockmarked Englishman who wore spectacles. "Oh, SeA±or Phelippes," Lope said, glad to see a face he knew. "The commandant's chamber is along this corridor, is it not?"

"Yes, that's right," Phelippes answered. Where Lope had spoken English, he used his fluent Spanish, finishing, "Congratulations on the skill of your right hand." His own right hand, still clutching a quill, made cut-and-thrust motions.

"For which I thank you." De Vega did his best to keep laughter off his face. He had a hard time imagining a man less dangerous than Thomas Phelippes. Hurrying up the corridor, he found Don Diego also scribbling away at something. He waited till the Spanish commandant look up from his work, then saluted. "I report as ordered, your Excellency."

"So you do. Come in, Senior Lieutenant, come in." Don Diego drummed his fingers on the desk. He pointed to a stool in front of it. "Sit, if you care to. So you've had more woman trouble, have you?"

"Well. " Lope saw no way out of that one. "Yes, your Excellency," he said reluctantly.

"You'll get talked about, killing a social superior," Don Diego remarked.

"No doubt. But I preferred that to letting him kill me."

"Yes, I can see how you might. Don Alejandro was not the brightest man I ever saw, but he was brave, and we'll miss him. We haven't enough Spaniards here as is; we can't afford to kill each other."

"Yes, your Excellency," Lope said. "Better you tell me that, though, than that you tell him."

"He wouldn't agree with you-but then, he's not here to ask, is he?" Don Diego drummed his fingers again. "By your account, by his mistress' account, it was a fair fight." Those fingers went up and down, up and down. "The Ibanez woman, I'm sure, is great fun in bed. But damn me, Senior Lieutenant, if she's worth a man in his grave. She'll be as faithless to you as she was to Don Alejandro, and sooner, for he had more money to spend on her than you do."

No matter how infatuated with her Lope was, that held the unpleasant ring of truth. "I'll take my chances, your Excellency," he replied, for want of anything better.

"So you will," the Spanish commandant agreed. "So you do." He scowled. "Go on, get out of here. You have to keep an eye on the Englishmen at the Theatre. The good Lord only knows what they're planning, but it's something. I need a hound to smell out treachery. For that, you'll do. And a man who knows how to handle a blade is always an asset, too. Through the eye! Madre de Dios! "

"Your Excellency, with a life on the line, one does what one must do," Lope said.

"Yes. And that is why I am sending you back to your duty at the Theatre," Don Diego said. His long face was made to show sorrow, and it did now. "We will need you, we will need the play, before long. Word just here from Spain is that it is doubtful his Most Catholic Majesty shall leave his bed again. His doctors dare not move him, even to change the linen on his mattress. The end approaches." He crossed himself.

So did Lope de Vega. "I shall do all I can to ensure that he has his monument here," Lope said. "You may rely on me, sir."

"I do, Senior Lieutenant," Don Diego Flores de ValdA©s told him. "That is why you are returning. For I still fear treason from the Theatre. I want you there to stop it."

"I've seen no sign of it," Lope said. "But if it rears its ugly head, I'll tear it out, root and branch."

In the upper gallery of the Theatre, the tireman's helper who did duty as a lookout started whistling

"A Man's Yard." At once, the players who had been Romans and Britons hacking away at one another shifted positions and became Spaniards and Englishmen hacking away at one another. "By God!"

Richard Burbage snarled at Shakespeare. "Is he here again?" He glared at the poet as if it were his fault.

Shakespeare spread his hands. "I did not bid him come."

"Unbidden guests are often welcomest when they are gone," Burbage said. "But of late he is never gone.

How can we rehearse Boudicca under the eyes of a don? He bleeds us of time like a leech of blood, save that a leech may heal, whilst he doth only harm."

"I cannot mend it-and say not the name, never no moe," Shakespeare added. "He hath the Latin to know whence it comes and what it portends." In strode Lope. He wasn't very tall, but swaggered like a giant. Shakespeare smiled and waved to him. "Welcome!" he lied. "Give you good day."

"And a good morrow to you," de Vega answered, advancing towards the stage. He surveyed the struggling players with a critical eye. "Many of these would die quickly, did they take the field in earnest."

"They are not soldiers. They but personate them," Shakespeare said.

"But their personation wants persuasion," Lope said. Shakespeare glanced towards Burbage. Ever so slightly, the player nodded. He'd been a soldier, and knew whereof Lope spoke.

"A soldier's eye may discern the flaws, but will the generality?" Shakespeare asked.

"Those of them have fought in war will know they see no war upon the stage," Lope told him.

"We shall do what we can." Shakespeare did his best to hide a sigh. He didn't think de Vega noticed.

Burbage did, and smiled. Shakespeare asked the question uppermost in his, uppermost in everyone's, mind: "How fares his Most Catholic Majesty?"

"He fares not well at all." De Vega's handsome face looked old and worn, as if he were speaking of his own dying father. "As I have said before, he is bedridden. The least movement pains him to the marrow.

His sores advance apace. When the surgeons cut them to loose the pus, it hath a vile stench. He is dropsical-more so by the day, they say. And yet his heart is strong. He fails, but fails by degrees."

All over the stage, players nodded. Most men had watched deaths like that, as well as the quicker, easier, more merciful kind. Signing himself with the cross, Shakespeare said, "God grant him ease from suffering."

"May it be so." Lope also crossed himself. "It likes me to watch the work here advance."

"I had liefer see King Philip go unproduced," Shakespeare said.

De Vega made a leg at him. "You are gracious, Master Shakespeare, to say so."

I am an ordinary ramping fool, with no more brain than a stone, Shakespeare thought. Lope de Vega had taken him to mean he wanted Philip II to live forever. That was how he'd meant to be taken.

But the Spaniard could have taken his words another way, as meaning he wanted to see some other play go on in place of King Philip. And he did. But to let Lieutenant de Vega know that would have meant nothing but catastrophe.

Burbage had noticed the same thing. With a growl that might have come from the throat of a bear chained to the pole in the baiting pit, he said, "You will make show of your wit, eh?"

"Wherefore should he not?" Lope asked. "Would you ask a poet to hide his wit? Would you ask a woman to hide her beauty?"

"A poet's wit may lead him into danger," Shakespeare said. "And a woman's beauty may likewise lead her-and him that sees her-into danger. Or would you say otherwise?"

Burbage suddenly brightened. Shakespeare couldn't resist preening a little, proud of his own cleverness.

If anything could make Lope turn away from untoward meanings, thinking of himself and his brush with death ought to do it. The Spaniard's hand fell to the hilt of his rapier. A few inches of the blade slid from the sheath as he struck a pose. "Danger knows full well that Lope is more dangerous than he."

His strutting would have seemed laughable had he not just killed a man. As things were, he'd earned the right to swagger. "Beauty itself doth of itself persuade the eyes of men without an orator," Shakespeare said. "Will you bring to the Theatre the beauty hath ensnared you, that we all may marvel and envy you for your conquest?"

"Alas, no, I fear me, for she speaks not your tongue," Lope replied.

Will Kemp chose that moment to come out of the tiring room. The clown gave Lope a courtier's bow exaggerated to absurdity. "Whether she speak or no, doth her tongue not please you?" he inquired.

Maybe the Spaniard wouldn't understand just what Kemp meant. So Shakespeare hoped. Lope's English, while good, wasn't perfect. But it was good enough, and he did. "How dare you have her tongue in your mouth?" he snarled, and made as if to draw the rapier again.

"Never did I that, nor she neither," Kemp said. But he seemed less afraid than Shakespeare would have been, having insulted a man who'd proved himself sword in hand. "Put up," he told de Vega. "Know you not, an you blood your blade in a fool, 'twill surely rust?"

The absurdity of that stopped the Spaniard where nothing else might have. "But what then becomes of the fool?" he asked.

Kemp let out a horrible scream, clutched his belly, and thrashed and writhed on the stage in well-feigned agony. As abruptly as he'd begun, he left off. "Thus, belike," he answered, getting to his feet once more.

Lope laughed and shook his head. "Truly God must love fools," he said. "How may I do less?"

"How should you find it hard, where most men find it easy?" Kemp returned. "But then, did you not find it hard-"

"Enough!" Shakespeare and Burbage spoke the same word at the same time. Kemp flew to disaster like a moth to flame.

After that afternoon's performance, Shakespeare left the Theatre as soon as he scrubbed off his makeup.

Usually, he would have stayed in the tiring room to share gossip and gibes, or else repair to a tavern to hash over the play with players and friends. Not today, not least because Lope de Vega came back there. Sometimes, keeping company with the Spanish officer was too much for him to bear.

But leaving brought him scant relief. As he hurried out of the Theatre, Constable Walter Strawberry marched in, a grim expression on his face. Shakespeare wondered if Strawberry were after him for more questions, but the constable, after giving him a somber nod, kept on going. So did Shakespeare, in the other direction.

He hadn't got far when a medium-sized, homely man of about his own age sidled up alongside him and said, "A good day to you, Master Shakespeare." His voice suggested he knew all manner of interesting things, some of them perhaps even licit.

"Master Skeres." Shakespeare hoped he sounded less dismayed than he felt. "And to you a good day as well, sir. I've not had the pleasure of your company for some little while." Nor wanted it, neither, he thought. "What would you?"

"I'd tell you somewhat I'd liefer not have to speak, but e'en so somewhat you should know," Nick Skeres answered.

When he didn't go on, Shakespeare asked, "And that is?"

"Lord Burghley's on his deathbed," Skeres said bluntly. "He'll not rise from it again, save to go in's coffin."

For Shakespeare, the news was like a blow in the belly. "God give him peace," he said. "He and Philip die together, as he said they would when first we met."

"Ay." Skeres' chuckle showed uneven teeth. "His mind's still hale, and he jests of't yet."

"What of. the enterprise?" Shakespeare would say no more than that, not in the open in Shoreditch High Street. Later, he remembered he should have spoken with Nicholas Skeres about raising the English mob against Spain's hated Irish soldiers. At the moment, with Skeres' news, the thought never entered his mind.

The other man replied without hesitation: "It goes forward as before, under Lord Burghley his son. And mark me, 'twill go as well under Robert Cecil as ever it could under his sire. Crookback though he be, his wit and will run straight."

"May you prove a true prophet." But Shakespeare couldn't help worrying-worrying even more than he had before. Sir William Cecil had been a power in the land longer than he'd been alive. He'd been in eclipse since the coming of the Armada, yes, but Robert, his son, seemed always to have dwelt and dealt in the shadows. Could he come out into the light now, at greatest need? He must essay it, Shakespeare thought, and kicked at the dirt. The timing couldn't have been worse.