Ruled Britannia

XIII

"Where's De Vega?" "Where's the poxy Spaniard?" "Where's the don?" Inside the Theatre, the questions tore at Shakespeare, again and again.

"I know not. Before God, I know not!" Trying to escape them, he fled from the stage back into the tiring room.

Richard Burbage pursued him, relentless as fate personified. "See you not, Will, we needs must know?"

Burbage said. "Had he come hither, we'd have seized and bound him, knocked him over the head, and gone forward with good heart. But where is he? Will he burst in the instant we are begun, soldiers at his back, crying, Hold! What foul treason is this?' Will he, Will?"

"I know not," Shakespeare said again. Desperate for the escape he knew he could not have, he perched on a stool and hid his face in his hands. He pressed the fleshy bases of his thumbs against his closed eyes till swirling flashes and sparkles of color lit the blackness that he saw.

Better he should have covered his ears, for Burbage persisted: "Were we not wiser, were we not safer, to give King Philip and not. the other play?" Even now, he would not name it. "We still can, and right well you know it."

"Dick, I know naught-naught, hear you?" Shakespeare wanted to scream it. Instead it came out as not much more than a whisper. "There is no wisdom in me, only a most plentiful lack of wit. And I say further, e'en with Lope seized and bound, I should not have gone forward with good heart, for sure safety lurks nowhere in this tangled coil."

Burbage grunted as if taking a blow in the belly. Shakespeare wondered why. As far as he could tell, he'd spoken simple truth, the only truth he knew. Voice a pain-filled groan, the player asked, "What to do, then, Will? What are we to do?"

Reluctantly, Shakespeare lowered his hands and looked up at him. "An you must think on somewhat, think on this: when they hang you for a traitor, would you liefer hang as traitor to the King of Spain or 'gainst old England?"

"I'd liefer not hang," Burbage said.

Shakespeare laughed bitterly. "Too late, for already your complexion is most perfect gallows-as is mine own."

Burbage glared at him. "Damn you."

"Ay." Shakespeare nodded. "And so?"

"Come then, cullion." Burbage reached out and, with frightening effortless strength, hauled him off the stool and to his feet. The player let him go then, but he followed Burbage back onto the stage. "Hear me, friends," Burbage boomed, and his big voice filled the Theatre. From all over the building, heads turned his way. "Hear me," he said again. "We give Boudicca-and God help us every one."

He had better, Shakespeare thought.

Will Kemp gave Burbage a mocking bow. "Thou speakest well, as always. And how the hangman and the worms do love thee."

With a shrug, Burbage answered, "Be it so, then. Had I ordered King Philip shown this day, you might have said the same."

"Would you not sooner hang for an Englishman?" Shakespeare added, his spirits beginning to revive now that the die was cast.

By way of reply, Kemp tugged at his codpiece. " 'Tis better far to be well hung than well hanged."

"Go to!" Shakespeare exclaimed as the company erupted in bawdy laughter. After that, the players went about their business with better hearts. Shakespeare had no doubt they still knew fear-he certainly did himself-but they seemed more able to put it aside. In a quiet moment, he made a leg at Will Kemp. The clown grabbed his crotch again.

Groundlings began strolling into the open space surrounding the stage on three sides. Some of them waved to the players, others to friends they recognized or to vendors already selling sausages and wine and roasted chestnuts. Folk more richly dressed took their places on benches in the galleries. More vendors circulated there.

A gentleman in silk and velvet and lace, his snowy ruff enormous and elaborately pleated, passed through the growing crowd of groundlings to call to Richard Burbage: "How now? I'm told you sell no places at the side of the stage?"

Bowing, Burbage nodded. "I cry your pardon, sir, but you're told true. The spectacle we shall offer needs must be fully seen by all. Those places interfering with the view of the general, we dispense with 'em today. They shall again be sold come the morrow."

The gentleman still looked unhappy, but Burbage's answer left him nothing upon which to seize. He turned and went back towards the galleries. Burbage and Shakespeare exchanged a look. The player's answer had been polite, plausible, and false. The real reason the company was selling no seats on the stage was to keep aristocrats of Spanish sentiment from drawing their swords and attacking the actors when Boudicca went on in place of King Philip-which the signboards outside the Theatre still announced.

Shakespeare spied plenty of aristocrats in the galleries. Some few he knew to be of Spanish sentiment.

About others, who could say? But even those Englishmen who served the dons most heartily might do it for the sake of their own advantage rather than conviction. If they saw the wind blowing in a new direction, might they not shift with it? They might, the poet thought. That had a corollary he wished he could ignore: they might not, too.

Burbage waved the last few players out on stage strutting before the groundlings or chatting with them back into the tiring room. Shakespeare could smell the sharp stink of fright rising from many of them. No doubt it rose from him as well. Burbage said, "Be of good cheers, lads. Speak the speech, I pray you, as you have learnt it; let it come trippingly off the tongue. And as you play, bear one thought ever in your minds: if all go well this day, we are made men forevermore. Not one of us will lack for aught the rest of the days of his life."

He wanted the company to see the wind blowing in a new direction, too. By the way the players nodded, they did. But then Will Kemp stirred. Shakespeare could guess what he was going to say-if all went not so well, the rest of the days of their lives would be few, and filled with pain. Shakespeare caught the clown's eye and shook his head. Not now, he mouthed. Kemp laughed and stuck out his tongue, but he kept quiet.

Somewhere in the distance, hardly audible through the buzz of the crowd in the Theatre, a church bell chimed the hour: two o'clock. Richard Burbage pointed to Shakespeare. "Will, you'll give the prologue?"

No! So much of Shakespeare wanted to scream it. But he couldn't, not now. He wondered what part of courage was no more than the urge not to look ridiculous in front of one's friends. No small part, if he was any judge. He licked dry lips and nodded. "I will."

"Go, then, and God go with you," Burbage said.

Something like quiet fell in the Theatre as Shakespeare slowly strode out towards the center of the stage.

He had never felt so alone. He wished one of the trap doors through which ghosts appeared would open and swallow him up. But no. He was here. What could he do but go on?

He stood still for a moment, letting all eyes find him. Then, into that near-quiet, he said,

"His Most Catholic Majesty is dead;

Meet that we here gather to mark his end.

I come to praise Philip. His tomb's afar

But his strong hand lies on us even yet.

As I'm but a scribbler, this play's the thing

Wherewith to note the nature of the King.

Imagine this stage Britain, long ago;

Here comes Boudicca, to seek her vengeance

'Gainst the Romans, who harshly, cruelly whipp'd

The Queen of the Iceni and ravish'd

Both her young defenseless virgin daughters.

Beginning with this struggle, starting thence away

To what may be digested in a play.

Like or find fault; do as your pleasures are:

Now win or lose, 'tis but the chance of war."

Shakespeare withdrew to mostly puzzled silence punctuated by spatters of applause-no, his prologue didn't match what the signboards outside promised. As he withdrew, he saw three or four men, both from among the groundlings and in the galleries, rapidly starting thence away. No doubt they were off to Sir Edmund Tilney: of course the Master of the Revels had spies here to make sure the play presented matched the one advertised and approved.

But those spies wouldn't reach Sir Edmund, not this afternoon. Shakespeare devoutly hoped they wouldn't, anyhow. Jack Hungerford's helpers, the men who took the audience's money, and a double handful of ruffians hired for the day were charged with letting no one leave the Theatre till the play was done. By then, it would be too late.

For the dons, Shakespeare wondered, or for us? Before he could fret any more, out went a wordlessly chanting Druid, the boy actors playing Boudicca and her daughters, and Richard Burbage, sword on his hip, as Caratach. For better or worse, it was begun; no stopping now, not till the end.

"Ye mighty gods of Britain, hear our prayers;

Hear us, you great revengers; and this day

Take pity from our swords, doubt from our valours,"

said Joe Boardman, who played Boudicca. He wasn't quite so good as Tom would have been, but he wasn't a Catholic, either. Excitement added life to his voice as he went on,

"Double the sad remembrance of our wrongs

In every breast; the vengeance due to Rome

Make infinite and endless! On our pikes

This day pale Terror sits, horrors and ruins

On our executions; claps of thunder

Hang upon our arm'd carts; and 'fore our troops

Despair and Death; Shame past these attend 'em!

Rise from the earth, ye relics of the dead,

Whose noble deeds our holy Druids sing;

Oh, rise, ye valiant bones! let not base earth

Oppress your honours, whilst the pride of Rome

Treads on your stock, and wipes out all your stories!"

With a great waving of arms, the hired man playing the Druid responded,

"Thou great Taranis, whom we sacred priests,

Armed with dreadful thunder, place on high

Above the rest of the immortal gods,

Send thy consuming fire and deadly bolts,

And shoot 'em home; stick in each Roman heart

A fear fit for confusion; blast their spirits,

Dwell in 'em to destruction; through their phalanx

Strike, as thou strik'st a tree; shake their bodies,

Make their strengths totter, and topless fortunes

Unroot, and reel to ruin!"

Epona, Boudicca's elder daughter, took up the cry of condemnation against the Roman occupiers:

"O, thou god

Thou fear'd god, if ever to thy justice

Insulting wrongs and ravishments of women

(Women sprung from thee), their shame, the sufferings

Of those that daily fill'd thy sacrifice

With virgin incense, have access, hear me!

Now snatch thy thunder up, 'gainst these Romans,

Despisers of thy power, of us defacers,

Revenge thyself; take to thy killing anger,

To make thy great work full, thy justice done,

An utter rooting from this blessed isle

Of what Rome is or has been!"

The first murmurs rose from the crowd as people began to realize what sort of praise for King Philip this was likely to be. Boudicca's younger daughter, Bonvica, continued in the same vein, saying,

"See, Heaven,

O, see thy showers stol'n from thee; our dishonours-

O, sister, our dishonours! — can ye be gods,

And these sins smother'd?"

An attendant lit a fire on the altar before which the Druid stood. Boudicca said, "It takes: a good omen."

As Caratach, Richard Burbage took a step forward and drew his sword to pull everyone's eye to himself. His great voice would have done the same when he declared,

"Hear how I salute our dear British gods.

Divine Audate, thou who hold'st the reins

Of furious battle and disordered war,

And proudly roll'st thy swarty chariot wheels

Over the heaps of wounds and carcasses

Give us this day good hearts, good enemies,

Good blows o' both sides, wounds that fear or flight

Can claim no share in; steel us with angers

And warlike struggles fit for thy viewing.

A wound is nothing, be it ne'er so deep;

Blood is the god of war's rich livery.

So let Rome put on her best strength, and Britain,

Thy little Britain, but great in fortune,

Meet her as strong as she, as proud, as daring!

This day the Roman gains no more ground here,

But what his body lies in."

"Now I am confident," Boudicca said. They exited to the wailing of recorders.

But for that music, vast silence filled the Theatre as the players left the stage. Into that silence, someone from the upper gallery yelled, "Treason! Treason most foul! You-!" A scuffle broke out. With a wild cry, someone fell out of that gallery, to land with a thud amongst the groundlings. No one cried treason any more.

"Play on!" someone else shouted from that same gallery. "By God and St. George, play on!" A great burst of applause rang out. Awe prickled through Shakespeare. They do remember they are Englishmen, he thought.

On came the Romans for the second scene of the first act. When the audience took in their half Spanish helms and corselets, even the innocents and dullards who'd missed the point of the play up till then suddenly grasped it. And when one of those Romans said,

"And with our sun-bright armour, as we march,

We'll chase the stars from heaven, and dim their eyes

That stand and muse at our admired arms,"

the hisses and catcalls that rose from all sides told just how admired Spanish arms were.

Back in the tiring room, Burbage said, "It doth take hold."

"Ay, belike." Shakespeare dared a cautious nod.

"It doth take hold here," Burbage amended. "What of the city beyond the Theatre?" Shakespeare could only shrug, hoping Robert Cecil and his confederates had planned that as well as this. Burbage had no chance to stay and question him further; he was on again in the next scene.

As it had in real life more than fifteen hundred years before, the great rebellion of the Iceni against tyrannical Roman rule built on the stage. A legionary officer cried on in despair,

"The hills are wooded with their partizans,

And all the valleys overgrown with darts,

As moors are with rank rushes; no ground left us

To charge upon, no room to strike. Say fortune

And our endeavours bring us into 'em,

They are so infinite, so ever-springing,

We shall be kill'd with killing; of desperate women,

Neither fear nor shame e'er found, the devil

Hath ranked 'mongst 'em multitudes; say men fail,

They'll poison us with their petticoats; say they fail,

They have priests enough to pray us to nothing.

Here destruction takes us, takes us beaten,

In wants and mutinies, ourselves but handfuls,

And to ourselves our own fears paint our doom-

A sudden and desperate execution:

How to save, is loss; wisdom, dangerous."

Swords, pikes, and halberds clashed against one another. Led by Burbage/Caratach, player-Britons chased player-Romans from the stage. How the crowd roared!

And Boudicca cried out, too, in exultation:

"The hardy Romans-O, ye gods, of Britain!-

Rust of arms, the blushing shame of soldiers!

These, men that conquer by inheritance?

The fortune-makers? these the Julians,

That with the sun measure the end of nature,

Making the world one Rome, one Caesar?

How they flee! Caesar's soft soul dwells in 'em;

Their bodies sweat sweet oils, love's allurements,

Not lusty arms. Dare they send these 'gainst us,

These Roman girls? Is Britain so wanton?

Twice we've beat 'em, Caratach, scattered 'em;

Made themes for songs of shame; and a woman,

A woman beat 'em, coz, a weak woman,

A woman beat these Romans!"

Before Richard Burbage could deliver Caratach's answering line, someone said, not too loudly, one word: "Elizabeth!" The name raced through the Theatre. Excitement raced with it, as if the mere mention of that name, for ten years all but forbidden, could remind everyone of what England had been before the Spaniards came-and what she might be again. Shakespeare nodded to himself. He'd hoped for that. To see what he'd hoped come true. What writer could ask for more?

And Burbage, as Caratach, let Elizabeth's name echo and reecho before saying,

"So it seems.

A man, a warrior, would shame to talk so."

Boudicca asked,

"My valiant cousin, is it foul to say,

What liberty and honour bid us do,

And what the gods let us?"

"No, Boudicca." Caratach shook his head.

"So what we say exceed not what we do.

You call the Romans fearful, fleeing wights,

And Roman girls, the lees of tainted pleasures:

Doth this become a doer? are they such?"

"They are no more," Boudicca said. "Do you dote upon 'em?"

Caratach shook his head again.

"I love a foe; I was born a soldier;

And he that in the head on's troop defies me,

Bending my manly body with his sword,

I make a mistress. Yellow-tress'd Hymen

Ne'er tied a longing virgin with more joy,

Than I am married to the man that wounds me:

And are not all these Romans? Ten battles

I suck'd these pale scars from, and all Roman;

Ten years of cold nights and heavy marches

(When frozen storms sang through my iron cuirass

And made it doubtful whether that or I

Were more stubborn metal) have I wrought through,

And all to try these Romans."

Boudicca wouldn't listen to him, of course. There lay the tragedy: in her overreaching herself, in thinking she could drive the mighty Roman Empire from Britain's shores. And do we likewise overreach ourselves with the Spaniards? Shakespeare wondered. He shivered. An we do, we die harder than ever the British Queen dreamt of dying.

The play went on. The Romans, hard pressed by the Iceni, went through agonies of hunger. Will Kemp's Marcus did a clown's turn to make light of it. He said,

"All my cohort

Are now in love; ne'er think of meat, nor talk

Of what provender is: hearty heigh-hoes

Are sallets fit for soldiers. Live by meat!

By larding up our bodies? 'Tis lewd, lazy,

And shows us merely mortal. It drives us

To fight, like camels, with bags at our noses."

He capered comically before resuming,

"We've fall'n in love: we can whore well enough,

That the world knows: fast us into famine,

Yet we can crawl, like crabs, to our wenches.

Fall in love now, as we see example,

And follow it but with all our salt thoughts,

There's much bread saved, and our hunger's ended."

Hands to his own large belly, he left the stage.

Shakespeare hurried up to him. "Well played!"

"How not?" Kemp said. "Belike, when I'm up on the gibbet, the hangman'll give me the selfsame praise.

May you stand beside me to hear't."

"An you go to the gallows, am I like to be elsewhere?" Shakespeare asked.

"An you go to the gallows, I should like to be elsewhere," the clown replied.

Poenius, the officer who would not send his legionaries to help Suetonius, cried out in despair as the Britons advanced against his fellow Romans:

"See that huge battle coming from the hills!

Their gilt coats shine like dragons' scales, their march

Like a tumbling storm; see them, and view 'em,

And then see Rome no more. Say they fail, look,

Look where the arm'd carts stand, a new army!

Death rides in triumph, Drusus, destruction

Whips his fiery horse, and round about him

His many thousand ways to let out souls.

Huge claps of thunder plow the ground before 'em;

Till the end, I'll dream what mighty Rome was."

Still more combat crowded the stage. Now, instead of Iceni routing Romans, the Romans, reviving, routed in their turn the Britons. The groundlings-yes, and the galleries, too-wailed in dismay as Boudicca and her daughters and Caratach mured themselves up in a last fortress to stand remorseless, relentless Roman siege. Poenius fell on his sword for shame.

In the fort, Boudicca raged against the soldiers who had failed her, shrieking,

"Shame! Wherefore flew ye, unlucky Britons?

Will ye creep into your mothers' wombs again?

Hares, fearful doves in your angers! Fail me?

Leave your Queen desolate? Her hopeless girls

To Roman rape and rage once more? Cowards!

Shame treads upon your heels! All is lost! Hark,

Hark how the cursed Romans ring our knells!"

From the balcony above the tiring room, which did duty for the battlements of the fort, Epona spoke to the Roman general, Suetonius:

"Hear me, mark me well, and look upon me

Directly in my face, my woman's face,

Whose sole beauty is the hate it bears you;

See if one fear, one shadow of terror,

One paleness dare appear apart from rage,

To lay hold on your mercy. No, you fool,

Damned fool, we were not born for your triumph,

To follow your gay sports, and fill your slaves

With hoots and acclamations. You shall see-

In spite of all your eagles' wings, we'll work

A pitch above you; and from our height we'll stoop,

Fearless of your bloody talons."

She cast herself down to death. When Shakespeare heard groans, when he heard women weep-yes, and some men, too-he knew that, regardless of what happened outside the Theatre, he'd done all he could in here.

Meanwhile, among the Romans who besieged the Britons' stronghold, Will Kemp's Marcus declared,

"Love no more great ladies, is what I say;

No going wrong then, for they hold no sport.

All's in the rustling of their snatch'd-up silks;

They're made but for handsome view, not handling,

Their bodies of so weak and soft a temper

A rough-pac'd bed'll shake 'em all to pieces;

No, give me a thing I may crush."

He illustrated, with great lascivious gestures. The crowd, which had mourned the death of poor ravished Epona, now laughed lewdly at a soldier relishing more rape.

But, a moment later, the groundlings cheered when Caratach and a last host of Iceni sallied. Caratach cut down Marcus-and Richard Burbage likely enjoyed killing Kemp, if only in the play. After that victory, Caratach said,

"My hope got through fire, through stubborn breaches,

Through battles that were hard to win as heaven,

Through Death himself in all his horrid trims,

Is gone forever, ever, now, my friends.

I'll not be left to scornful tales and laughter."

He threw himself at the Romans surrounding Suetonius and died fighting.

Inside the fortress of the Iceni, hope died, too. As the Romans below besieged them, Boudicca and Bonvica stood on the battlement where Epona had killed herself. Bonvica asked, "Where must we go when we are dead?"

"Strange question!" Boudicca told her younger daughter.

"Why, to the blessed place, dear! Eversweetness

And happiness dwells there."

"Will you come to me?"

"Yes, my sweet girl," Boudicca answered.

"No Romans? I should be loath to meet them there."

"No ill men," Boudicca promised,

"That live by violence and strong oppression,

Are there; 'tis for those the gods love, good men."

"Dearest mother, then let us make an end," Bonvica said. "Have you that dram from the kindly Druid?"

They drank poison together. Bonvica died at once. Boudicca, who'd let her daughter have the greater share to be sure of death, lasted till the Romans, led by Suetonius, burst into the fortress and up onto the battlement. "You fool," she told the general.

"You should have tied up death when you conquer'd;

You sweat for me in vain else: see him here!

He's mine, and my friend; laughs at your pities.

And I will be a prophet ere I die.

Look forward now, a thousand years and more.

A royal infant, — heaven shall move about her!-

Though in her cradle, yet doth promise

Upon this land a thousand thousand blessings,

Which time shall bring to ripeness. She shall be-

Though none now living will behold that goodness-

A pattern to all princes living with her,

And all that shall succeed: Sheba was never

More covetous of wisdom and fair virtue

Than this pure soul shall be: all princely graces

With all the virtues that attend the good,

Shall still be doubled on her; truth shall nurse her.

She shall be lov'd and fear'd. Her own shall bless her;

Her foes shake like a field of beaten corn.

In her days every man shall eat in safety;

Her honour and the greatness of her name

Shall grow, and make new nations. She shall flourish

In all the plains about her. Our children's children

Shall see this, and bless heaven."

"Thou speakest wonders," Suetonius said, awe in his voice.

"She will be your true and natural Queen,

Bred, born, and brought up amongst you. So will

You most naturally, like British men,

Defend her, fight for her, and not only

Guard her with danger of your lives, but also

Aid her with your hands and livings. You will

Fight for your country, your dearest country,

Wherein you shall be nourished. It will be

Your native soil, and therefore most sweet, for

What may be more belov'd than your country?"

Dying Boudicca managed a feeble nod, and sent her last words out to a breathlessly silent Theatre:

"E'en so; 'Tis true. Oh! — I feel the poison!

We Britons never did, nor never shall,

Lie at the proud foot of a conqueror,

But when we do first help to wound ourselves.

Come the three corners of the world in arms,

And we shall shock them. Naught shall make us rue,

If Britons to themselves do rest but true."

She fell back and lay dead.

Shakespeare strode forward, to the very front edge of the stage. Into more silence, punctuated only by sobs, he said,

"No epilogue here, unless you make it;

If you want your freedom, go and take it."

He stood there, waiting, for perhaps half a dozen heartbeats. This was even harder than when he'd spoken the prologue. If he'd failed here. Suddenly, without warning, silence shattered-not into applause, but into a great roar of rage at all that England had endured in the ten years since the Spaniards came and forced Isabella and Albert onto the English throne. Had Shakespeare been the foreign Queen or King, that roar would have made him tremble.

Being who he was, he stared out in wonder at the audience. Everything they'd held in for these ten long years now loosed itself at once. Crying, "Spaniards' dogs!" and other things, far worse, the groundlings turned on a handful of their own number known to like the invaders too well. Up in the galleries, several real fights broke out-more of the upper classes, those who could afford such places, favored the Spaniards and Isabella and Albert.

More struggling men, and a couple of shrilly shrieking women, too, fell or were flung down amongst the groundlings. Their hurtling bodies sent the folk below sprawling, and must have badly hurt some. The groundlings punched and pummeled and kicked-and, no doubt, robbed-the richer folk who'd, literally, fallen into their hands. They assumed anyone who was cast down loved the dons. Shakespeare wondered if they were right.

In the middle gallery, the fanciest in the Theatre, an aristocrat in a fine doublet of glowing white silk made his voice rise above the din: "To the Tower! To the Tower, to free the Queen!" He was a handsome man a few years younger than Shakespeare, with dark hair, a sandy beard scanty on the cheeks but long on the chin and cut square at the bottom, and red, red lips. "To the Tower, and I will lead you!" As if on cue, a sunbeam gleamed from the rapier he brandished.

"To the Tower! To the Tower! To free the Queen!" One man with firm purpose was plenty to fire all the others. When the aristocrat descended, the groundlings swarmed up to him and raised him on their shoulders.

"Who's yon gentry cove?" Shakespeare asked the players on the stage behind him. They'd come out to take their bows, but the crowd, full of a greater passion, had all but forgotten them.

"Why, know you not Sir Robert Devereux?" Richard Burbage sounded surprised. Shakespeare only shrugged. He'd never worried much about recognizing aristocrats by sight. He left that to Burbage, a socially more ambitious man-indeed, a climber if ever there was one.

And then Edward the tireman's assistant, now a budding actor who still wore his "Roman" helmet and corselet, raised his sword as Devereux had done. "To the Tower!" he cried. "To the Tower, to free the Queen!" He ran past Shakespeare, jumped down off the stage, and joined the roaring throng pouring out of the Theatre.

Eight or ten young players, some who'd portrayed Romans and others Iceni, followed him, allies now against the Spaniards. "To the Tower!" they shouted, one after another. The youth who'd played Epona threw down his wig and rushed after them, still in a woman's shift.

And then, to Shakespeare's amazement and dismay, Burbage and Will Kemp tramped forward together, both of them plainly intent on marching on the Tower of London, too. Shakespeare seized Burbage's arm. "Hold, Dick!" he said urgently. "Let not this wild madness infect your wit. Can a swarm of rude mechanicals pull down those gray stone walls? The soldiers on 'em'll work a fearful slaughter. Throw not your life away."

Before Burbage could answer, Will Kemp did: "The soldiery on the walls may work a fearful slaughter, ay, an they have the stomach for't. But think you 'twill be so? A plot that stretcheth to the Theatre surely shall not fall short of the Tower."

Shakespeare pondered that. Of course, William Cecil's plans-Robert Cecil's now-went far beyond this production of Boudicca. The poet had seen that from the beginning. He'd seen it, but he hadn't seen all of what it meant. Here Kemp certainly saw more than he had.

Burbage added, "Having come so far, Will, would you not watch what your words have wrought?"

"Thus spake Kit Marlowe of's return to London," Shakespeare said, "and much joy he had of't." But Burbage and Kemp both jumped down onto the hard-packed dirt where the groundlings stood. Once more, Shakespeare discovered the desire not to seem a coward to his friends could push him forward where fear of death would have held him back. Cursing under his breath, damning himself for a suicide and a fool, he sprang down, too.

Another stage-Roman landed beside him and offered him a knife, saying, "I can well spare it, for I have me also this fine long sword."

"My thanks," Shakespeare said. What good the dagger would do against the arquebuses and cannon of the garrison in the Tower, he couldn't imagine. Having it somehow gave comfort even so.

Only one narrow doorway led into and out of the Theatre, the better to keep cheats from sneaking in without paying. The crowd took some little while to filter out through it. Shakespeare wondered whether the delay would stifle spirits. But no; shouts of, "To the Tower!" and, "To free the Queen!" and, "God bless good Queen Bess!" doubled and redoubled.

When at last Shakespeare escaped the building, he saw several thick columns of black smoke rising from different parts of London. Through the din and gabble around him, the distant crackle of arquebuses and pistols going off and the deeper, slower boom of cannon fire came to his ears. The city was already rising against the occupiers.

"Said I not so?" Will Kemp bawled in his ear.

"You did. And you had the right of it." Shakespeare gave credit where it was due, admitting what he could hardly deny.

Roaring down towards Bishopsgate, the crowd from the Theatre cried Elizabeth's name again and again, ever louder, ever more fiercely. They called down curses on the heads of Philip II, Philip III, and every Spaniard ever born. They cursed Isabella and Albert, too. And, every now and again, one of them would bawl out a line or two from Boudicca. Pride flowered in Shakespeare's breast. I am father to this, he thought: not the sole father, but father nonetheless.

They hadn't come far into the rickety clutter of tenements and shops and dives of Bishopsgate Ward Without the Wall when a constable-not Walter Strawberry, but a younger, thinner man with a red-blond beard-stepped into the middle of the street, held up a hand, and shouted, "Stand, there! Stand, I say!

What means this unseemly brabble?"

They showed him. Someone at the head of the baying pack stooped, picked up a stone, and flung it. It caught the constable in the face. Shakespeare, taller than most, saw blood spurt as the constable's nose smashed to ruin. With a moan, the man clutched at himself and sank to his knees. The pack rolled over him, punching, kicking, stomping, stabbing.

By the time Shakespeare went past, the constable was hardly more than a red smear trampled into the stinking muck. The poet's stomach lurched. He stumbled on, fighting not to spew up his guts. And I am father to that, he told himself, wishing he could find a sweet, soothing lie instead: not the sole father, but father nonetheless.

People stared from windows and doorways. Even here, murder was seldom done so openly. Even here, curses were seldom cried so loud, or from so many throats at once. And if anything could draw shopkeepers and laborers, robbers and thieves, barmaids and trulls, open murder and loud curses seemed the proper lodestones. The crowd swelled, as if by magic.

Every step closer to Bishopsgate raised more alarm in Shakespeare. The Spaniards and wild Irishmen standing guard at the gate would not let themselves be taken unawares, as the luckless constable had done. (Had he a wife? Children? He'd come home to them no more.) If they had time, they would close the gates against this storm. Even if they didn't, they'd surely stand and fight.

Daylight was fading, the sun sinking down through smoke towards Westminster. More than enough light remained, though, to show that Bishopsgate stood open. Cheers rose from countless throats, cheers and a renewed cry: "To the Tower! On to the Tower!"

Blood splashed the gray stone walls of the gateway. One Spanish boot lay crumpled close by. Those were the only signs Shakespeare saw that soldiers had ever stood here. Were they dead? Fled? Some dead, assuredly, he thought, eyeing the bloodstains and that boot and wondering what had befallen the man who'd worn it.

"On to the Tower! To the Tower! To free Elizabeth! To free the Queen!" Those savage shouts grew louder as the crowd from the Theatre-and from the tenements beyond the walls-swarmed into London like a conquering army. But how much like a conquering army? Shakespeare wondered, and then wished he hadn't.

They weren't the only swarm loose in the city. More cries and curses rose: some single spies, some in battalions. Madness was loosed here. Maybe Robert Cecil had worked better than even he knew.

"A don! A don!" A new shout went up. So might hunters have cried, A fox! A fox! Shakespeare got a glimpse of the Spaniard, saw horrified amazement spread across his face, saw him turn and start to run, and saw an Englishman tackle him from behind as if in a Shrove Tuesday football match. The Spaniard went down with a wail. He never got up again.

If the Spaniards could have put a line of arquebusiers in front of the rampaging crowd from the Theatre and poured a couple of volleys into it, it would have melted away. Shakespeare was sure of that. A line of armored pikemen might have halted it, too. Even as things were, groundlings and folk from the tenements-some still yelling about freeing Elizabeth-broke away to plunder shops that tempted them.

But no line of ferocious, lean-faced, swarthy Spaniards appeared. Shouts and cries and the harsh snarl of gunfire suggested the dons were busy, desperately busy, elsewhere in London. When chance swept Shakespeare and Richard Burbage together for a moment, the player said, "Belike they'll make a stand at the Tower."

"Likely so," Shakespeare agreed unhappily. Those frowning walls had been made to hold back an army, and this. thing he was a part of was anything but.

Up Tower Hill, where he'd watched the auto de fe almost a year before. A great roar, a roar full of triumph, rose from the men in front of him as they passed the crest of the hill and swept on towards the Tower Ditch and the walls beyond. And when Shakespeare crested the hill himself, he looked ahead and he roared, too, in joy and amazement and suddenly flaring hope. Will Kemp had been right, right and more than right. All the gates to the Tower of London stood open.

After tenderly kissing Cicely Sellis goodbye, Lope de Vega stopped in a nearby ordinary for his dinner and a cup of wine with which to celebrate his conquest. The cup of wine became two, then three, and then four: a conquest like that deserved a good deal of celebrating. By the time he started off towards the Spanish barracks, the clock had already struck one. That didn't worry him. As far as he could remember, he had nowhere else he needed to be.

As far as he could remember. Others, though, might remember further. He'd just turned into St. Swithin's Lane when a startled shout came from up ahead: "Lieutenant de Vega! Madre de Dios, senor, what are you doing here at this hour?"

"Oh, hello, Enrique," Lope said. "I'm coming back to the barracks, of course. What else should I be doing now?"

He meant it for a joke. But Captain GuzmA?n's servant stared at him and answered, "What else should you be doing? SeA±or, aren't you going to play, shouldn't you be playing, Don Juan de Idiquez in Shakespeare's King Philip less than half an hour from now? I was going up to the Theatre to see you.

By God and all the saints, sir, I never expected to find you here."

"Don Juan de Idiquez. " Lope gaped. He said the name as if he'd never heard it before in his life.

Indeed, for a moment that seemed to be true. But then it was as if a veil were torn from in front of his eyes. Memory, real memory, came flooding back: memory of why he should have been at the Theatre, and memory of why he'd gone to Cicely Sellis' lodging-house-to Shakespeare's lodging-house! — in the first place.

He crossed himself, not once but again and again. At the same time, he cursed as foully as he knew how-magnificent, rolling, guttural obscenity that left Enrique's eyes wider than ever and his mouth hanging open. De Vega didn't care. He wanted a bath, though even that might not make him feel clean again. He wondered if anything would ever make him feel clean again.

"That bruja, that whore-she bewitched me, Enrique, she bewitched me and she swived me and she sent me on my way like a. like a. like an I don't know what. And that means, that has to mean-"

"I don't understand, senor," Enrique broke in. "I don't understand any of this."

"Do you understand treason? Do you understand black, vile, filthy treason? And treason coming soon-soon, by God! — or she never would have. " De Vega didn't waste time finishing. He whirled and started back up St. Swithin's Lane.

"Where are you going?" Enrique cried after him.

"First, to kill that puta," Lope snarled. "And then to the Theatre, to do all I can to stop whatever madness they're hatching there." Even in his rage, he realized he might not-probably would not-be able to manage that by himself. He stabbed out a finger towards Enrique. "As for you, go back to Captain GuzmA?n. Tell him to send a troop of men up to the Theatre as quick as he can. Tell him it's bad, very bad, as bad as can be. Run, damn you!"

Enrique fled as if ten million demons from hell bayed at his heels. Lope started up towards Bishopsgate at a fast, purposeful stride, halfway between a walk and a trot. Black fury filled him. He'd never imagined a woman could use him so. Mercenaries like Catalina IbaA±ez he understood. But what Cicely Sellis had done to him was ten, a hundred, a thousand times worse. Not only had she stolen a piece of him, she'd taken her pleasure with him afterwards to waste more of his time and to make sure he didn't get that piece back.

And I wouldn't have, either, if I hadn't run into Enrique, he thought savagely. But I am myself again, and she'll pay. Oh, how she'll pay! His hand closed hungrily on the hilt of his rapier.

He'd just turned onto Lombard Street and passed the church of St. Mary Woolnoth when he spied a Spanish patrol ahead of him. "You men!" he called, and gave them a peremptory wave. "Come with me!"

Their sergeant recognized him. "What do you want with us, Lieutenant de Vega? We have places we need to check, and we're running late."

Lope set his hands on his hips. "And I have a bruja to catch and treason to put down," he rapped out.

"Which carries the greater weight?"

Gulping, the sergeant stiffened to attention. "I am your servant, senor!"

"You'd better be. Come on, and my God come with us!"

The bells of St. Mary Woolnoth rang out two o'clock. All across London, dozens, hundreds, of church bells chimed the hour. De Vega cursed. He should have been up at the Theatre. Lord Westmorland's Men should be presenting King Philip. Were they? If they weren't, what were they giving instead? He didn't know. He couldn't know. But he could guess, and all his guesses sent ice racing along his spine.

And then, all at once, he had more things to worry about than Lord Westmorland's Men. Someone on a rooftop flung a stone or a brick at the patrol. It clanged off a soldier's morion. The man staggered, but stayed on his feet. "You all right, Ignacio?" the sergeant asked.

"Yes, thanks be to God-I've got a hard head," the soldier replied. "But where's the cowardly son of a whore who threw that? I'll murder the bastard."

Before the sergeant could answer, a chamber pot sailed out of a second-story window-not just the stinking contents, but the pot, too. It shattered between two Spaniards, spattering the whole patrol with filth. And then, while they were still cursing that, a pistol banged. With a howl of pain, a soldier slumped to the ground, clutching his leg. Crimson blood streamed out between his fingers.

High and shrill and blazing with excitement, a voice cried out in English: "Death to the dons!"

And, as if that one voice were a burning fuse leading to a keg of powder, a whole great chorus took up the shout. "Death-Death-Death to the dons!" In a heartbeat, the cry echoed up and down the streets of London. "Death-Death-Death to the dons!"

Lope's mind went clear and cold as the ice he'd imagined he felt. Suddenly, the patrol that had seemed so reassuringly strong felt tiny and helpless as a baby. He nodded to the sergeant. "This is it. They are going to rise." His own voice held eerie certainty.

The sergeant tried to peer up at all the windows overlooking the street. Smoke still eddied in front of one.

The shot had come from there, but what odds the pistoleer still lingered? Slim, slim. He didn't order his men after the assassin, as he would have without that daunting cry. Instead, nodding to Lope, he asked,

"And what do we do now, senor?"

"We win or we die-it's that simple," de Vega answered. But it wasn't, quite. He looked around, too, as the sergeant had, trying to see every which way at once. Plainly, the patrol would never get to the Theatre, nor even to Bishopsgate. He wished that soldier hadn't been wounded. He couldn't bear to leave the fellow behind, but bringing him along would hamper them. "We'd better get back to the barracks," he said reluctantly. "We'll have numbers on our side there."

"Yes, sir." The sergeant sounded relieved. Now that he had orders, he knew what to do with them.

"JosA©, Manuel: bandage Pedro's leg and get him up with his arms over your shoulders."

Both soldiers knelt to do as he told them, but one said, "We can't do much fighting that way, Sergeant."

"We'll worry about that later. Quick, now!" To punctuate the underofficer's words, another stone thudded down into the street. It hit no one, but could have smashed a skull if it had. Seeing it, hearing it, made Lope acutely aware he wore a felt hat with a jaunty plume, not a high-combed morion.

Pedro howled again when they hauled him upright. And the sergeant proved cleverer than de Vega had suspected: one of the soldiers supporting the wounded man was lefthanded, so they both had their swords free even with his arms draped over them.

"Let's get moving," Lope said, and they started back the way they had come.

"Death-Death-Death to the dons!" The cry seemed to come from everywhere at once, from near and far. More stones and more reeking waste flew out of windows. A furious trooper fired his arquebus at one of their tormentors, but only a mocking laugh rewarded him. And then the patrol had to pause while he reloaded: an empty arquebus was nothing but an awkward club.

Lope hated every heartbeat of delay. How long before the Englishmen nerved themselves to fight in the streets, if they weren't already elsewhere in London? How long before weapons long hoarded in hope came out of hiding? Not long, he feared, and he didn't have enough men at his back.

Half a dozen Englishmen, a couple armed with swords, the rest with bludgeons, came out of St. Mary Woolnoth and formed a ragged line across Lombard Street."What do we do, senor?" the sergeant muttered.

"We fight if we have to, but let me try something first," Lope answered in a low voice. Then, in English, he shouted, "Stand aside, in the name of the Queen!"

He hissed out a great sigh of relief when they did stand aside. One of them doffed his cap and made a clumsy leg at de Vega, saying, "We cry your pardon, sir, but we took ye for a pack of stinking Spaniards."

"God bless Elizabeth!" another Englishman added.

They all nodded. So did Lope. He led the patrol past them without another word. If he spoke too much, his accent would betray him. And betrayal enough was already loose in London this day. If they dared speak imprisoned Elizabeth's name, if they believed he, leading soldiers, also spoke of Elizabeth and not Isabella. If that was so, treason ran far deeper than even de Vega had dreamt.

Behind him, one of the Englishmen said, "Come. Let's to the Tower, and help to set her free." Their departing footsteps were quick and purposeful. They thought they could do it. Whether they proved right or wrong, their confidence chilled Lope.

"Sergeant!" he said sharply.

" Si-, senor? "

"Who garrisons the Tower of London? We, or the English?"

"Why, some of each, sir. We both want to make sure Elizabeth the heretic stays there till she dies, eh?"

The sergeant hadn't understood any of what Lope or the street ruffians said in English. De Vega's dread only grew. In times like these, how far could any Spaniard trust an Englishman?

As he and the patrol turned down into St. Swithin's Lane, a sharp volley of gunfire came from the south, from the direction of the barracks. He wanted to order a charge. With the wounded soldier slowing everyone else and hampering two healthy men, he couldn't.

Englishmen swarmed up the street towards them. They were fleeing, not fighting. No cries of, "Death to the dons!" burst from their throats. They'd met death, and didn't like him. When one of them spied de Vega and his comrades, he cried, "Here's more o' the foul fiends! We are fordone!" But he and his friends pounded past before Lope and his little force could hope to halt them.

Bodies lay in the lane, some unmoving, some thrashing in pain. Spanish soldiers moved among them, methodically putting to the sword any who still lived. More Spaniards, pikemen and arquebusiers, formed a line of battle in front of the barracks. One of the soldiers with sword in hand looked up from his grim work and growled, "Who the devil are you?" as Lope led the patrol towards him.

"Senior Lieutenant de Vega," Lope answered.

The other Spaniard's face changed. "Oh! You're the fellow who knew this mess was coming. Pass on, seA±or-pass on. If we hadn't had a few minutes' warning of trouble, those damned Englishmen might've taken us unawares."

"De Vega! Is that you?" From one end of the line of battle, Captain GuzmA?n waved.

"Yes, your Excellency." Lope waved back.

"God be praised you're all right," GuzmA?n said. "When Enrique came running back here with your report, I feared we'd never see you again. I was about to go after you to the Theatre when we were attacked ourselves."

"Never mind the Theatre, or me." Even Lope, far from the least self-centered man ever born, knew some things were more important than he was. "The English are going to try to free Elizabeth from the Tower.

If they do-"

Always the courtier, GuzmA?n bowed to him. "I am the senior officer present right now. I was going to hold the barracks against whatever they threw at us. Now you've given me something more urgent to do.

Muchas gracias." He shouted orders. More Spanish soldiers came tumbling out of the building and rushed up from the south: a few hundred all told, Lope judged. Guzman said, "Form a column, boys.

We have to get to the Tower, and it's liable to be warm work. Are you up to it?"

"Yes, sir!" the soldiers roared. By the way they sounded, no Englishman could stop them or even slow them down.

Baltasar GuzmA?n bowed again. "May we have the pleasure of your company, Senior Lieutenant de Vega?"

"Of course, your Excellency. But I have a wounded man here, and-"

"Leave him." GuzmA?n's voice was hard and flat. "We can't bring him, and we can't spare men to guard him. I'm sorry, but that's how it is. Will you tell me I'm wrong?"

He waited for Lope's reply. Lope had none, and he knew it. At his nod, Jose and Manuel eased Pedro to the ground. What is he thinking? Lope wondered. He shook his head. Better not to know.

Captain Guzman raised his voice: "To the Tower, fast as we can go. For God and St. James, forward- march! "

"For God and St. James!" the soldiers shouted. Off they went, a ragged regiment against a city. To see them strut, the city was the outnumbered one.

Perhaps half a mile separated the barracks from the Tower of London. Moving as fast as they could, the soldiers might have got there in five minutes: they might have, had nobody between the one and the other had other ideas.

Guzman marched the Spaniards towards the river to Upper Thames Street, which became Lower Thames Street east of London Bridge and which led straight to the Tower. That the street close by the Thames led straight to the Tower, though, quickly proved to have been obvious to others besides him.

No sooner had his men turned into Thames Street and started east than bricks and stones flew down from rooftops and windows: not the handful of them that had greeted Lope's patrol in Lombard Street, but a regular fusillade. The missiles clattered from helmets and corselets. Men cursed or howled when stones struck home where they weren't armored. A soldier who got hit in the face crumpled without a sound. A moment later, another went down.

"What do we do, Captain?" a trooper cried.

"We go on," Guzman answered grimly. "If we stop and kill Englishmen here, we have great sport, but we don't get where we need to go on time. Forward! " Lope admired the nobleman's discipline. Had he himself commanded the Spaniards, he knew he might have yielded to the sweet seduction of revenge against the cowards and skulkers who plagued them. GuzmA?n had better sense.

Just past the church of All Hallows the Less, a barricade blocked Thames Street: planks and carts and rubbish and rocks and dirt. The Englishmen behind it brandished a motley assortment of halberds and bills and pikes and swords. Two or three arquebus muzzles poked over the top, aimed straight at the oncoming Spanish soldiers. "Death to the dons!" the Englishmen shouted.

Captain GuzmA?n's lips drew back from his teeth in a savage smile. "Now we can come to close quarters with some of these motherless dogs," he said. "Give them a volley, boys, and then show them what a proper charge means."

The front rank of arquebusiers dropped to one knee. The second rank aimed their guns over the heads of the first. On the other side of the barrier, the Englishmen fired their few guns. Flames belched from the muzzles. A bullet cracked past Lope and smacked wetly into flesh behind him. A soldier shrieked. Puffs of thick gray smoke clouded the barricade.

Then Captain Guzman yelled, "Fire!" The end of the world might have visited Upper Thames Street.

The roar of twenty-five or thirty arquebuses was a palpable blow against the ears. More smoke billowed.

Its brimstone stink and taste put Lope in mind of the hell to which he hoped the volley had sent a good many Englishmen. Screams from in back of the barricade said some of those bullets had struck home.

Baltasar GuzmA?n gave another order. "Charge! St. James and at them!"

" A?Santiago! " the Spaniards cried. Swordsmen and pikemen swarmed past the arquebusiers towards the barrier blocking their way. They scrambled over it and tore openings in it with their hands. The English irregulars behind the barricade chopped and hacked at them, trying to hold them back. A pistol banged, then another. The irregulars yelled as loudly for St. George as Guzman's men did for St. James.

As the Englishmen held them up at the barricade, more bricks and stones rained down on the Spaniards from the buildings on either side of Thames Street. The pikeman next to de Vega dropped his weapon and staggered back, his face a gory mask. But, even with the help of the barrier, the English couldn't stop GuzmA?n's men for long. Lope sprang up onto a cart and then leaped down on the far side of the barricade. A halberdier tried to hold him off. He rushed forward and ran the Englishman through. In the press, a polearm was too clumsy to do much good.

After the irregulars lost the barricade, the ones still on their feet tried to flee. The Spaniards cut and shot them down. "Forward!" Captain GuzmA?n shouted again, and forward his men went. The bulk of London Bridge loomed to Lope's right. But, before he and his comrades got even as far as the bridge, another barricade loomed ahead. This one looked more solid than the one they'd just overwhelmed.

And, from the east, Englishmen rushed to defend it. Sunlight glinted off armor over there. De Vega cursed. At least some English soldiers who had served Isabella and Albert were now on the other side, the side of rebellion.

Arquebuses and pistols bellowed: more than had defended the first barricade. A Spaniard near Lope who'd turned his head at just the wrong instant staggered back, half his jaw shot away. Blood fountained.

His tongue flapped among shattered teeth. Horrid anguished gobbling noises poured from that ruin of a mouth.

"A volley!" Captain GuzmA?n commanded. But, in the disorder after the first fight and pursuit, the volley took longer to organize. Meanwhile, those English guns kept banging away at the Spanish soldiers in the street in front of them.

Indifferent to the enemy fire, the arquebusiers elbowed their way forward and into position, some kneeling, others standing. They might have been one man pulling the trigger. De Vega wondered if he would have any hearing left at the end of the day. Crying, " A?Santiago! " the Spaniards rushed at the second barricade.

The fight at the first barrier had been savage but brief. The English hadn't had enough men there to hold the position long. Things were different here. Real soldiers with corselets and helmets of their own were far harder to down than irregulars had been. They wielded pike and sword with the same professional skill as Lope and his countrymen. And the irregulars who battled alongside them seemed altogether indifferent to whether they lived or died. If one of them could tackle a Spaniard so another could stab him while he was down, he would die not only content but joyous.

As before, the English had set up the barricade between tall buildings. Stones and bricks and saucepans and stools-anything heavy and small enough to go out a window-rained down on the Spaniards.

Pistoleers fired from upper-story windows, too.

Lope grabbed a morion someone had lost and jammed it onto his head. It was too big; it almost came down over his eyes. He didn't care. It was better than nothing. He pushed his way forward, trying to get to the barricade. A wounded Spaniard, clutching at the spurting stumps of two missing fingers, stumbled back past him, out of the fight. He slid forward into the place the other man had vacated, and found himself next to Captain GuzmA?n. "Ah, de Vega," GuzmA?n said, as if they held wine goblets rather than rapiers.

"Can we get to the Tower?" Lope asked.

"I hope so," Guzman answered calmly.

"How many more barricades in front of us?" Lope went on. The captain only shrugged, as if to say it didn't matter. But it did, especially if every one of them was held this stubbornly. Lope persisted: "Should we try some different street to get there?"

"This is the shortest way," Guzman said.

He was right, in terms of distance. In terms of time, in terms of effort and lives lost. "I beg pardon, your Excellency," Lope said, "but how much good will we do if we get there tomorrow with three men still standing?"

"I command here, and I must do as I think best," Captain Guzman replied. "If I go down and you take charge, you will do what you will do, and the result will be as God wills. In the meantime, we have a job to tend to here in front of us"

Lope found no answer to that but pushing forward once more. A dead Spaniard lay just in front of the barricade. Lope scrambled up onto his corpse. A man behind him shoved him onto a dirt-filled barrel blocking the street. An Englishman thrust at him. He beat the spearhead aside with his blade. A pistol ball whined malevolently past his ear.

If I stay up here, I'll surely die, he thought. He couldn't go back, either. Shouting, " A?Santiago! " at the top of his lungs, he leaped down on the far side of the barricade. An Englishman partly broke his fall. He rammed his sword into the man's chest. It grated on ribs. The irregular let out a bubbling shriek and crumpled, blood pouring from his mouth and nose. Lope had a bad moment when he couldn't clear the blade, but then all at once it came free, crimson almost to the hilt. " A Santiago! " he yelled again, and slashed wildly, trying to win himself a little room, trying most of all not to be killed in the next instant.

He wasn't the first Spaniard down on this side of the barricade. A couple of soldiers were down indeed, and wouldn't rise again till Judgment Day. But others, like him, cut and thrust and cursed and fought to clear space for their fellows to follow them. An arquebus-a Spanish arquebus-went off right behind him, from atop the barricade. That bullet almost killed him, too. Instead, it smashed the left shoulder of the Englishman with whom he was trading swordstrokes. As the man yowled in pain, Lope thrust him through the throat and stepped forward over his writhing body.

Here, though, more and more foes rushed into the fray, shouting, "Death to the dons!" and "Elizabeth!"

and "God and St. George!" Most of them were unarmored. Many of them were unskilled. But their ferocity. Having sown the wind with ten years of harsh occupation, the Spaniards now all at once reaped the whirlwind. If the Englishmen could stop them from reaching the Tower only by piling up a new barricade of their own dead flesh, they seemed willing-even glad-to do it.

A stone, luckily a small one, clattered off Lope's snatched-up helmet. He stumbled, but kept his feet. To go down, here, was all too likely to die. He howled an oath when a knife slashed his left arm. His own backhand cut, as much instinct as anything else, laid open the face of the burly man who'd wounded him.

Opening and closing his left hand several times, Lope found muscles and tendons still worked. He laughed. Much he could have done about it if they hadn't! He couldn't even bandage himself. He had to hope he wouldn't bleed too badly.

The Spaniards would gain a step, lose half of it, gain two, lose one, gain one, lose it again. Then a dozen or so arquebusiers got up onto the barricade together and poured a volley into the English-again, a ball just missed de Vega. As wounded enemies toppled, Spanish soldiers pushed past them.

A sergeant tugged at Lope's wounded arm. He shrieked. "Sorry, seA±or," the sergeant bawled in his ear. The fellow was also wounded; he'd had his morion knocked off, and sported a nasty cut on his scalp. Gore splashed his face and his back-and-breast. "What are your orders?"

" My orders?" Lope shouted back. "Where the devil's Captain Guzman?"

"Down, sir-a thrust through the thigh," the underofficer answered. De Vega grimaced; a wound like that could easily kill. The sergeant went on, "What now, sir? We've got more of these fornicating Englishmen coming up behind us now, and more and more on the rooftops, too. What do we do? What can we do?"

He sounded frightened for the whole Spanish force.

Till then, Lope had been too busy to be frightened for anyone but himself. He called quick curses down on GuzmA?n's head. If the captain hadn't taken them to the Tower the most obvious way. It might not have mattered at all, de Vega thought. He couldn't change routes now. He couldn't split his force, either, not when it was beset from all sides. He saw only one thing he could do.

"Forward!" he said. "We have to go forward. Tell off a rear guard to hold back the Englishmen behind us. Come what may, we must reach the Tower." Captain GuzmA?n had been right about that.

Forward they went, half a bloody step at a time. Every soldier they lost was gone for good. Fresh Englishmen kept flooding into the fight.

Even through the din of his own battle, Lope heard a great racket of gunfire from ahead, from the direction of the Tower of London. He didn't know what it meant, not for certain, but he did know he misliked it mightily. Then an Englishman he never saw clouted him in the side of the head with a polearm-this one, unlike the fellow de Vega had killed, found room to swing his weapon even in the crowd. The world flared red, then black. Lope's rapier flew from his hand. He swayed, shuddered. fell.

Ravens. The great black birds had always roosted on, nested on, the Tower of London. Now, careless of the swarms of live Englishmen flooding into the Tower, the scavengers settled on the sprawled and twisted bodies on the battlements and in the courtyard. Most of the dead were Spaniards, but more than a few Englishmen lay among them. Every once in a while, the birds would flutter up again when someone pushed too close, but never for long. They hadn't enjoyed such a feast in years.

Shakespeare shivered to see the ravens. He'd been sure the carrion birds would peck out his eyes and tongue and other dainties after he was slain. And it might yet happen-he knew that, too. He had no idea how the uprising fared in the rest of London, in Westminster, elsewhere in England. Here by the Tower, though, all went well, so his fears receded for the moment.

"The Bell Tower!" people shouted. "She's in the Bell Tower!" They streamed towards it. No need to ask who she was. Hardly any need even to call out her name, not now. Were it not for her, this throng never would have come to the Tower.

Beside Shakespeare, a graybeard said, "She was in the Bell Tower aforetimes, too. Bloody Mary mewed her up there, forty years gone and more."

Bloody Mary. Amazement prickled through Shakespeare. Who, since the Armada landed, had dared use that name for Elizabeth's half sister? No one the poet had heard, not in all these years. Truly a new wind was blowing. May it rise to a gale, a mighty tempest, he thought.

Soldiers in armor-dented, battered, blood-splashed armor-stood guard at the base of the Bell Tower.

Their spears and swords and arquebuses-and their formidable presence-kept people from rushing up into the Tower to the rooms where Elizabeth had passed the last ten years. Ruddy cheeks, blue eyes, beards of light brown and yellow and fiery red proclaimed them Englishmen. Shakespeare wondered if any Spaniards were left alive here. He hoped not.

"Back! Keep back!" an officer yelled. Half the plume had been hacked off his high helm, but his voice and his swagger radiated authority. The crowd didn't actually move back-impossible, with more folk flooding into the courtyard every minute. But it did stop trying to push for ward. In those circumstances, that was miracle enough. A peephole in the door behind the officer opened. Someone spoke to him through it. He nodded. The peephole closed. The officer shouted again: "Hear ye! Hear ye me! Her Majesty'll bespeak you anon from yon window." He pointed upwards. "But bide in patience, and all will be well."

Her Majesty. Again, Shakespeare felt the world turning, changing, around him. Since 1588, Philip II's daughter Isabella had been Queen of England. Maybe Isabella still thought she was. But this swarm of Englishmen thought otherwise. God grant we be right.

"Elizabeth!" Sir Robert Devereux's voice boomed out, even more full of command, more full of itself, than the officer's. "Elizabeth! Elizabeth! Come forth, Elizabeth!"

At once, the crowd took up the chant: "Elizabeth! Elizabeth! Come forth, Elizabeth!" It echoed from the gray stone walls of the Tower. Shakespeare shouted with the rest. "Elizabeth! Elizabeth! Come forth, Elizabeth!" The rhythm thudded in him, as impossible to escape as his own heartbeat.

The shutters of that window swung open. The chanting stopped.

A sharp-faced, gray-haired woman in a simple wool shift looked out from the window at the suddenly silent throng below. Staring up at her, Shakespeare at first guessed her a serving woman who would in a moment escort Elizabeth forward. When he thought of the Queen of England, he thought of her as she'd been portrayed throughout her reign. To be Elizabeth, she should have worn a magnificent gown. She should have sparkled with jewels. Her face should have been white and smooth despite her years, her hair a red that likewise defied time. A glittering coronet should have topped her head.

But then she said, "I am here. My own dear people of England, you are come at last, and I. am.

still. here." Implacable determination blazed from her every word, even though most of her teeth were black.

"God save the Queen!" Robert Devereux shouted, waving his rapier. Again, the crowd took up the cry.

Elizabeth raised her hand. Once more, silence fell. Into it, she said, "God hath preserved me unto this hour, for the which I shall give praise to Him all the remaining days of my life." Her voice seemed to strengthen from phrase to phrase. Shakespeare wondered how much she'd used it these past ten years.

With whom had she spoken? Who would have dared speak to her?

She went on, "And I assure you, I do not desire to live even one day more to distrust my faithful and living people. Let tyrants and foul usurpers fear. I have always so behaved myself, even in my long time of hardship and sorrow, that, under God, I have placed my chiefest strength and safeguard in the loyal hearts and good will of my subjects. Thus I stand before you at this time, not for my recreation and disport, but being resolved in the midst and heat of this glorious uprising to live or die amongst you all, never being made separate from you again. "

Her voice caught. Tears stung Shakespeare's eyes. What had the imprisoned Queen gone through, here in the Tower, here in the hands of her enemies? "Elizabeth!" the crowd shouted, over and over again.

"Elizabeth! Elizabeth!" Shakespeare joined it, yelling till his throat was raw.

Elizabeth raised her hand once more. "Now we are begun anew," she said. "I shall gladly lay down, for my God and for my kingdom and for my people, my honor and my blood, even in the dust. I know I have the body of a weak and feeble woman, but I have the heart and stomach of a king, and of a king of England too. And I think foul scorn that Spain or any prince of Europe should have dared invade the borders of my realm, or that Isabella and Albert falsely style themselves sovereigns thereof. Rather than any more dishonor shall fall on me, I myself will take up arms-"

This time, the roar of the crowd stopped her: a savage wordless roaring bellow that said she could have led them barehanded against all the hosts of Spain, and they would have torn the dons to pieces for her.

Even Shakespeare, not the boldest of men, looked about for a Spaniard to assail, though he was not sorry to discover none.

"I am not so base minded that fear of any living creature or prince should make me afraid to do that were just," Elizabeth said when she could make herself heard again. "I am not of so low a lineage, nor carry so vile a wit. You may assure yourselves that, for my part, I doubt no whit but that all this tyrannical, proud, and brainsick invasion and occupation of my beloved England will yet prove the beginning, though not the end, of the ruin of that kingdom which, most treacherously, even in the midst of treating peace, began this wrongful war. Spain hath procured my greatest glory that meant my sorest wrack, and hath so dimmed that light of its sunshine, that who hath a will to obtain shame, let them keep its forces company. And contrariwise, who seeketh vengeance for great wrongs done, and requital for the burthens borne in our long captivity, let them go forward now, with me, and God defend the right!"

She stepped away from the window. For a moment, Shakespeare thought she cared nothing for the plaudits of the crowd. As a man of the theatre, he knew what a mistake that was. But then the door behind the English soldiers at the base of the Bell Tower opened. There stood Elizabeth, still in that simple, colorless shift.

How they all roared, there in the dying day that suddenly seemed a sunrise! Sir Robert Devereux dashed forward, past the armored guardsmen, to stand beside the Queen. Bowing low, he murmured something to her, something lost in the din to Shakespeare. Whatever it was, Elizabeth nodded. And then the poet saw, then everyone saw, what it meant. Devereux stooped, lifted her as lightly as if she were a toddling babe, and set her on his bull-broad shoulders. Cheers and shouts redoubled. Shakespeare had not dreamt they could.

From that unsteady perch, Elizabeth once more raised a hand. Slowly, quiet gained on chaos. The Queen said, "My loving people, I might take heed how I commit myself to armed multitudes. I might, but I shall not. I myself will be your general, judge, and rewarder of every one of your virtues in the field as we overthrow and utterly cast down the vile usurpation which hath oppressed this my kingdom these ten years past. I know already for your forwardness you deserve rewards and crowns; and I do assure you, in the words of a prince, they shall be paid you."

Another roar, this time coalescing into a fresh shout of, "Elizabeth! Elizabeth! Elizabeth!" From Devereux's shoulders, she waved again. Little by little, a new cry replaced her name:

"Death-Death-Death to the dons!" And the smile stretching itself across Elizabeth's face when she heard that would have chilled the blood of any Spaniard every born.

Shakespeare shouted with everybody else. As he shouted, rewards and crowns ran through his mind. He hadn't undertaken Boudicca in hope of reward. Looking back, he couldn't recall just why he had undertaken it, save from fear of being slain should he refuse. But he'd already been handsomely paid (and paid by the Spaniards, too, for the play that never was). If now Elizabeth herself should look on him with favor.

If now this uprising triumphed, which was as yet anything but assured. Sir Robert Devereux strode into the crowd, crying, "Forward now! Forward, for St. George and for good Queen Bess!"

People swarmed forward, not against the Spaniards but towards him and Elizabeth, to call out to her, to touch her, simply to see her at close quarters. Devereux pushed on, irresistible as if powered by a millrace, to take Elizabeth from the Tower where she'd languished so long and into her kingdom once more.

Someone bumped Shakespeare: Will Kemp. The clown made a leg-a cramped leg, in the crush-at him.

"Give you good den, gallowsbait," he said cheerfully.

"Go to!" Shakespeare said. "Meseems we are well begun here."

"Well begun, ay. And belike, soon enough, we shall be well ended, too." Kemp jerked his head to one side, made his eyes bulge, and stuck out his tongue as if newly hanged.

With a shudder, Shakespeare said, "If the wind of your wit sit in that quarter, why stand you here and not with the Spaniards?"

"Why?" Kemp kissed him on the cheek. "Think you you're the only mother's son born a fool in England?"

He slipped away, wriggling through the crowd like an eel, making for the Queen. Shakespeare didn't follow. He simply stood where he was. Too much had happened too fast.

As things chanced, Elizabeth passed within a couple of feet of him. Their eyes met for a moment. She had no idea who he was, of course. How could she, when he'd come to London only months before she was locked away? But she nodded to him as if they'd been close for years. Anyone might have done the same. But only a few, only the greatest players, could do it and make the people at whom they nodded feel they'd been close for years. Shakespeare was sadly aware he didn't quite have the gift. Richard Burbage did. So too, in his twisted way, did Will Kemp. And so did Elizabeth.

"Death to the dons!" Shakespeare shouted, and followed the little old woman who was his Queen out of the Tower, out into London.