Ruled Britannia

XV

As it had on that fateful afternoon six weeks earlier, absolute silence reigned in the Theatre. Into it, Joe Boardman once more spoke Boudicca's final lines:

"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."

The Queen of the Iceni died again.

As he had then, Shakespeare strode for ward past Boudicca's body. As he had then, he ended the play:

"No epilogue here, unless you make it;

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

And, as he had then, he stood there at the front of the stage and waited for whatever came next.

What came, this time, was applause, wave after wave of it, from groundlings and galleries alike.

Shakespeare's eyes went to the velvet-upholstered chair that had been set up in the middle gallery. He bowed low to Queen Elizabeth.

She inclined her head by way of reply. She had once more the outward seeming of a Queen: her gown glimmering with pearls, her great ruff starched and snowy, pale powder banishing the years from her face, a coronet in place in her curly red wig. Yet to Shakespeare's mind she'd never been more queenly than when she spoke, all unadorned, from the window in the Tower.

Behind the poet, the players who'd acted in Boudicca came forward to take their bows. At the earlier performance, they hadn't got the plaudits they deserved. The play had aimed at firing the audience against the Spanish occupiers, and met its aim even better than Shakespeare dared hope. That meant the players, though, went all but forgotten.

Not now. The audience clapped and stamped their feet and shouted and roared. Lord Westmorland's Men bowed again and again, but the tumult would not die. Robert Cecil-now Sir Robert-who sat beside Elizabeth, leaned towards her and spoke behind his hand. Shakespeare saw her smile and nod.

Then she rose to her feet and blew the company a kiss. Along with everyone else, Shakespeare bowed once more, lower than ever. The din in the Theatre redoubled.

At last, after what seemed forever, it began to ebb. A trumpeter behind Elizabeth's seat winded his horn.

The sharp, clear notes drew everyone's attention. Elizabeth rose once more and said, "Lord Westmorland being a proved traitor and Romish heretic who hath fled with the dons, and the name of a former company of players having fallen into misfortunate disuse, it is my pleasure to ordain and declare that the players here before me assembled shall be known henceforward and forevermore as the Queen's Men, betokening my great favor which for most excellent reason they do enjoy."

That drew even more applause than the play had. Once again, Shakespeare bowed very low. So did all the members of the company behind him. When laughter mingled with the applause, Shakespeare looked over his shoulder. There was Will Kemp, turning his reverence to the Queen into a silly caper. Burbage looked horrified. When Shakespeare glanced up towards Elizabeth in the gallery, she was laughing.

Maybe that said Kemp knew her humor better than Burbage did. Maybe-perhaps more likely-it said the clown couldn't help clowning, come what might.

The trumpeter blew another flourish. He had to blow it twice before the crowd heeded him and quieted.

Elizabeth said, "Be it also known that I purpose rewarding the players of the Queen's Men with more than the name alone, the which is but wind and air, good for vaunting but little else. Your valor in giving this play when the foul occupiers of our land would vilest treason style it shall of a surety be not forgot.

That I am Queen again over more than mine own chamber I am not least through your exertions, nor shall I never forget the same."

Cheers rang out again, some of them hungry: not so much envious as speculative. They shall have favor and wealth. How can I dispossess 'em of those, taking them for mine own? Shakespeare could all but hear the thoughts behind the plaudits. Had he been standing amongst the groundlings or even in the galleries, such thoughts might have run through his head, too. Consumption of the purse is so often incurable, who'd not seek a remedy therefrom?

One more trumpet flourish rang out. Trailed by Robert Cecil, the Queen descended from the middle gallery. Instead of leaving the Theatre, though, she made her way through the groundlings towards the stage. They parted before her like the Red Sea before Moses. In black velvet, the younger Cecil might have been her shadow behind her.

"How may I ascend?" she asked Shakespeare, who still stood farthest forward of the company.

He pointed back towards the right. "Thitherward lies the stair, your Majesty."

With a brusque nod, she used the stairway to come up onto the stage. Sir Robert remained at her heel.

Fear gnawed Shakespeare. If anyone in the audience meant her ill, he had but to draw a pistol and.

But no one did. Elizabeth's confident, even arrogant stride said she was certain no one would. Perhaps that confidence helped ensure that no one would. Perhaps. Shakespeare remained nervous even so.

The Queen walked up beside him. She looked out over the audience for a moment, again seeming almost to defy anyone to strike at her. Then she said, "Know, Master Shakespeare, you are much in my mind and heart for writing this Boudicca in despite of the Spaniards, showing forth no common courage in the doing."

I was more afeared of Ingram Frizer's knife than of the dons, Shakespeare thought. Sometimes, though, not all the truth needed telling. Here, he could and did get by with a murmured, "Your Majesty, I am your servant."

Elizabeth nodded again. "Just so. And you served me right well, in a way none other might have matched." Shakespeare knew a stab of grief for Christopher Marlowe. But even Kit had said he was best suited for this business. Then the Queen added another sharp word, one that cast all thoughts of Marlowe from his mind: "Kneel."

"Your Maj-?" Shakespeare squeaked in surprise. Elizabeth's eyes flashed. Awkwardly, Shakespeare dropped to his right knee.

"Your sword, Sir Robert," Elizabeth said.

"Is ever at your service, your Majesty." Robert Cecil drew his rapier and handed it to the Queen.

By the way she held it, she knew how to use it. She brought the flat down on Shakespeare's shoulder, hard enough to make him sway. "Arise, Sir William!" she said.

Dizzily, Shakespeare did, to the cheers of his fellow players and of the crowd in the Theatre. Queen Elizabeth returned the rapier to Robert Cecil, who slid it back into its sheath. "Your-Your Majesty,"

Shakespeare stammered, "I find me altogether at a loss for words."

"This I do now forgive in you, for that you were at no loss whilst setting pen to page on this play, which did so much to aid in mine own enlargement and England's freedom from the tyrant's heel," Elizabeth replied. "The necessity of this action makes my speech the more heartfelt, hoping you will measure my good affection with the right balance of my actions in gratitude for yours, for the which I render you a million of thanks. Sweet is my inclination towards you, whereby I may demonstrate my care: of this we shall speak more anon." She swept off the stage, Sir Robert Cecil once more following close.

Out she went, through the groundlings. They cheered her as lustily as before, and turned back to shout,

"Hurrah for Sir William!" Still dazed, Shakespeare bowed to them one last time before leaving the stage.

And had we given King Philip, and had the rebellion failed, Queen Isabella might have dubbed me knight this day, he thought, at which spectacle these selfsame folk would have cheered no less.

And if they had given King Philip, and if Isabella had knighted him, would he be thinking Elizabeth might have done the same had the company presented Boudicca? He shook his head, not so much in denial as in reluctance to get caught up in the tangling web of what might have been. Going back to the tiring room was nothing but a relief.

He found no peace there. Players kept coming up to pay him their respects. So did the tireman, the bookkeeper, the tireman's helpers, and everybody else who managed to get into the crowded room.

Some of them were really congratulating him. More, he judged, were congratulating his rank.

That thought must have occurred to Will Kemp, too. After bowing low-far too low to a knight (or to a duke, for that matter)-the clown said, "Ay, by my halidom, you're a right rank cove now," and held his nose.

"Go to!" Shakespeare said, laughing. " 'Tis the stench of your wit I'd fain rout from my nostrils."

"Had I more rank, I'd be less. Had God Himself less, He'd be more," Kemp said.

"Your quibbles fly like arrows at St. Sebastian." Shakespeare mimed being struck.

"Arrows by any other name would smell as sweet," Kemp retorted. Shakespeare flinched. However fond of puns he was himself, he'd never looked to see Romeo and Juliet so brutalized. Loftily, Kemp added,

"The same holds not for me."

"Naught holds for you," Richard Burbage said, coming up beside him. "Nor honor nor sense nor decency."

"Ah, but so that you love me, Dick, all's well!" Kemp cried, and planted a wet, noisy kiss on Burbage's cheek.

"Avaunt!" Burbage pushed him away, hard. "Aroint thee, mooncalf!"

The clown sighed. "Alas, that love, so gentle in his view, should be so tyrannous and rough in proof." He puckered up again.

"Good Lord, what madness rules in brainsick men," Burbage said.

"I am not mad; I would to heaven I were," Kemp replied. "For then, 'tis like, I should forget myself." He capered bonelessly-and more than a little lewdly.

Burbage looked ready to thwack him in good earnest. "Give over, the both of you," Shakespeare said.

Will Kemp gave him another extravagant bow. "I'd sooner be a cock and disobey the day than myself and disobey a knight."

"Half cock, belike," Burbage said.

"I yield to your judgment, sweet Dick, for you of all men surely are all cock as well."

"Enough!" Shakespeare shouted, loud enough to cut through the din in the tiring room and make everyone stare at him. He didn't care. "Give over I said, and give over I meant," he went on. "The Queen hath said we are to be rewarded according to our deserts, and you'd quarrel one with another? 'Tis foolishness. 'Tis worse than foolishness: 'swounds, 'tis madness. Did we brabble so whilst in the mist of terrible and unavoided danger we readied Boudicca for the stage?"

Shaming them into stopping their sniping didn't work as he'd hoped. Burbage nodded. "Ay, by my troth, we did," he declared.

Kemp only shrugged. "Me, I know not. Ask of Matt Quinn."

Shakespeare threw his hands in the air. "Go on, then," he said. "Since it likes you so well, go on. You were pleased to play on cocks. Strap spurs on your heels, then, and and tear each other i'the pit." Will Kemp stirred. Shakespeare glared at him. That quibble never got made.

As the players left the Theatre, Burbage caught up with Shakespeare and said, "There be times. " His big hands made a twisting motion, as if he were wringing a cock's neck.

"Easy," Shakespeare said. "Easy. He roils you of purpose."

"And I know it," Burbage replied. "Natheless, he doth roil me."

"Showing him which, you but urge him on to roil you further."

"If he prick me, do I not bleed? If he poison me, do I not die? Have I not dimensions, sense, affections, passions? If he wrong me, shall I not revenge? The villainy he teacheth me I will execute, and it shall go hard but I will better the instruction."

"He is a clown by very nature," Shakespeare said. "It will out, will he or no. And he hath a gift the auditors do cherish-as have you," he added hastily. "The company is better-the Queen's Men are better-for having both you twain."

"The Queen's Men." Burbage's glower softened. "There you have me, Will. A prize worth winning, and we have won it. And I needs must own he holp us in the winning." He was, when he remembered to be, a just man.

When Shakespeare walked into his lodging-house, he found Jane Kendall all fluttering with excitement.

"Is it true, Master Shakespeare?" she trilled. "Is it true?"

"Is what true?" he asked, confused.

"Are you. Sir William?"

He nodded. "I am. But how knew you that?"

Before his landlady answered, she took him in her arms, stood on tiptoe, and kissed him on the cheek.

With her blasting and scandalous breath, he would rather have had a kiss from Will Kemp's lips. He didn't say so. He would have had no chance anyhow, for she was off: "Why, I had it from Lily Perkins three doors down, who had it from her neighbor Joanna Ball, who had it from Peg Mercer, who had it from her husband Peter, who had it in his shop in Bishopsgate Street from a wight returned to London from the Theatre. Naught simpler."

"I see," Shakespeare said, and so, in a way, he did. Rumor ran so fast, before long it would likely start reporting things before they happened. As well it did not with Boudicca, he thought, else the dons had found some way to thwart us.

"Sir William," the Widow Kendall repeated, fluttering her eyelashes at him. "To have a knight dwelling in mine own house-dwelling so that he may pay his scot, I should say."

"Fear not, Mistress Kendall," Shakespeare said. "Whilst I be no rich man, still I am not poor, neither.

Have I ever failed to pay what's owed you?"

"Never once-the proof of which being you dwell here yet," his landlady replied. Shakespeare hid a sigh.

She loved him for his silver alone.

The door to Cicely Sellis' room opened. Out came the cunning woman, with a round-faced matron with a worried expression. Almost everyone who came to see her had a worried expression. Who that was not worried would come to see a cunning woman? Mommet bounded out and started sniffing Shakespeare's shoes, which to his nose must have told the tale of where the poet had been.

"Rest you easy. All will be well," Cicely Sellis told her client. "That which you dread shall remain dark-"

"God grant it be so!" the other woman burst out.

"It shall remain dark," Cicely Sellis said soothingly, "an you betray yourself not by reason of your own alarums internal."

"I would not," the woman said. "I will not. God's blessings upon you, Mistress Sellis." Out she went, seeming happier than she had a moment before.

Shakespeare wondered what she didn't want revealed. Had she collaborated with the Spaniards? Or had she simply taken a lover? He was unlikely to find out. If he were putting this scene in a play, though, what would he choose?

If he were putting this scene in a play, he would be hard pressed to find a boy actor who could reproduce the terror and loathing on Jane Kendall's face as she stared at the cunning woman.Whore, she mouthed silently. Witch. But she said not a word aloud. Cicely Sellis paid her rent on time, too.

She nodded now to Shakespeare. "God give you good even, Sir William."

The Widow Kendall jerked. That proved too much for her to bear. "How knew you of's knighthood, hussy?" she demanded. "These past two hours, were you not closeted away with bell, book, and candle?"

She had that wrong. Bell, book, and candle were parts of the ceremony of excommunication, not the tools of the witch who might deserve it. Shakespeare knew as much. By the glint of amusement in Cicely Sellis' eye, so did she. She didn't try to tell her landlady so. All she said was, "Did you not call Master Shakespeare Sir William just now? And did not Lily Perkins bring you word of the said knighthood, clucking like a hen the while? I am not deaf, Mistress Kendall-though betimes, in your disorderly house, I wish I were."

After a moment to take that in, Jane Kendall jerked again. Shakespeare looked down at Mommet to hide his smile. The cunning woman had got her revenge for the Widow Kendall's mouthed whore. When his face was sober again, he nodded to her and said, "Good den to you as well, Mistress Sellis."

"I do congratulate you, you having done so much the honor to deserve," Cicely Sellis said.

"My thanks," Shakespeare answered.

"May your fame grow, and your wealth with it, so that, like any rich and famous man, you may build your own grand house and need no longer live in any such place as this," the cunning woman told him.

Jane Kendall jerked once more. "Naught's amiss here!" she said shrilly. "An you find somewhat here mislikes you, Mistress Sellis, why seek you not other habitation?"

"For that I can afford no better," Cicely Sellis said. "The same holds not for Master Shakes-for Sir William."

"No better's to be found," Jane Kendall asserted. Cicely Sellis said nothing at all. Her silence seemed to Shakespeare the most devastating reply of all. And so it must have seemed to his landlady, too, for she yelped, "Why, 'tis true!" as if the cunning woman had called her a liar to her face.

And Cicely Sellis was right: he could afford finer than a one-third share of a Bishopsgate bedchamber.

Whether he wanted to spend the money for better was a different question. He had in full measure the player's ingrained mistrust of good fortune and fear it would not last. How many men had he known who, briefly flush, spent what they had while they had it and then, misfortune striking, wished they hadn't been so prodigal? Too many, far too many.

He didn't care to come out with that openly. And so, instead, he smiled and said, "Why, how ever should I lay me down without Jack Street's nightingale strains, as from some pomegranate tree, to soothe mine ears and weigh my eyelids down?"

"Nightingale?" Cicely Sellis shook her head. "A jackass braying through a trump of iron might make such sounds were he well beaten whilst he blew, but assuredly no thing of feathers."

"He's not so bad as that." The Widow Kendall did her best to sound as if she were sincere.

"Indeed not: he's worse by far," Cicely Sellis said. "And Master Will-Sir William-lieth not behind stout doors which with distance do help the unseemly racket to abate, but in the selfsame chamber. That he be not deafened quite wonders me greatly."

The odd thing was, Shakespeare had meant what he said. However appalling he'd found the glazier's snores when Street first moved into the lodging-house, they were only background noise to him these days.

"Know you, Sir William, you are and shall ever be welcome here, so that you pay the rent when 'tis due."

Not to save her soul could Jane Kendall have omitted that qualifying clause.

"I thank you," Shakespeare said dutifully. He might have been less dutiful had he not known she would have told Ingram Frizer the same as long as whatever men the ruffian killed in the parlor were not themselves tenants of hers.

With autumn dying and icy-fanged winter drawing nigh, night came early. Shakespeare made his way through darkness to his ordinary. "Sir William!" Kate exclaimed when he walked into the smoky warmth and light. She dropped him a pretty curtsy.

He started to ask how she knew, as he had back at the lodging-house. Then someone at a table by the fireplace waved to him. There sat Nick Skeres and Thomas Phelippes. "Will you sup with us, Sir William?" Skeres called. By the way he slurred his speech, he'd already drained the goblet in front of him a good many times.

Shakespeare took a stool and sat down beside Phelippes. The sallow, pockmarked little man's face was also flushed behind his new spectacles. At first, Shakespeare thought the firelight lent him color. Then Phelippes breathed wine into his face. "Is it a celebration?" the poet asked.

"Naught less, Sir William, by my troth," Phelippes said grandly, more warmth-more expression generally-in his voice than Shakespeare was used to hearing from him. Raising his goblet, he called out to Kate: "Somewhat to drink here, prithee! My throat's parched as the Afric desert!"

"Anon, sir, anon," she answered, as servers often did when they were in less of a hurry than their customers.

"What sort of celeb-?" Shakespeare stopped. He pointed first at Phelippes, then at Skeres. "Do I behold, by any chance, Sir Thomas and Sir Nicholas?"

"You do, Sir William." Nick Skeres-Sir Nicholas Skeres now-nodded and giggled.

"Bravely done, gentlemen." Shakespeare clasped hands with Phelippes and Skeres in turn. He'd suspected the one and feared the other, whose appearances, like those of a petrel, foretold storms ahead. But the storms had passed, and the fear and suspicion with them. They'd all been on the same side, and their side had won. That was plenty to make them a band of brothers, at least for tonight.

Kate set bowls of beef stew before Skeres and Phelippes. "My thanks, sweetheart," Skeres said, and leered at her. Shakespeare eyed his new "brother" as Abel must have eyed Cain.

But his jealousy passed when he saw Kate ignoring Skeres. Pointing to a bowl, he asked, "That's this even's threepenny supper?" She nodded. Shakespeare said, "I'll have the same, then, and sack for accompaniment."

"Another penny," she warned, as if he didn't know as much already.

"Be it so," he said.

"I'll bring it you presently, Will-Sir William." Kate hurried off.

"Is not our hostess of the tavern a most sweet wench?" Skeres watched her hips work as she went.

"She's an honest woman," Shakespeare replied with some asperity.

"She is a woman, therefore to be won." Nick Skeres ran his tongue wetly over fleshy lips. "She's beautiful and therefore to be wooed." A dull thump came from under the table. Skeres yelped and grabbed at his ankle. "Here, what occasioned that?" he said.

"Thou jolthead, seest thou not she's the poet's?" Phelippes hissed. Shakespeare didn't think he was supposed to catch that, but he did.

Skeres kept rubbing at the injured ankle, but his face cleared. "I cry your pardon, Sir William-I knew not," he said.

Shakespeare waved it aside. Kate brought him his goblet of sack, saying, "Supper in a moment." He nodded, watching Skeres. Skeres watched the serving woman. Shakespeare nodded again, this time to himself. He'd expected nothing else. He trusted Kate. Skeres? He didn't think anyone would ever be able to trust Sir Nicholas Skeres.

He raised his goblet. "Your good health, gentlemen," he said, "and God save the Queen!"

They all drank. "God hath saved her indeed," Phelippes said. "Likewise hath He saved this her kingdom, that all feared lost for ever to the dons and to the priests."

Kate set Shakespeare's bowl of stew before him. This time, Skeres' gaze didn't light on her bosom or her haunches. The newly minted knight lifted his glass of wine. "Here's to the Cecils, father and son," he said.

"Without 'em-" He shook his head.

" Sine quibus non," Thomas Phelippes said. Shakespeare nodded. Without the Cecils, there would have been no uprising. He and Skeres and Phelippes drank.

"A pity Lord Burghley lived not to see his grand scheme flower," Shakespeare said. "He was Moses, who led his folk to the Promised Land, but to whom it was not given to enter therein."

"But he died well pleased in his son, the which was not given to Philip of Spain," Phelippes replied. A Philip still ruled Spain, of course, but not the Philip. Philip II would always be the Philip. "This I know full well, having seen the King's despatches to Don Diego Flores de Valdas. Philip III speaks no French.

He prefers to stay indoors, playing the guitar. He hath not learned the use of arms, nor knows he naught of matters of state. So spake his father, the King."

"God grant it be so, that Elizabeth may the more readily outface him." Shakespeare finished his goblet of sack and waved for another. Kate brought it to him. The knife he used to skewer chunks of meat was the one he'd got from the Roman soldier at the Theatre.

"Having regained her throne, she hath, methinks, outfaced him," Thomas Phelippes said. "For how shall he again bring England under the yoke? Why, only by another Armada. Hath he the will? E'en with the will, hath he the means? By all I've seen, nay and nay."

That was so reasonable, so plausible, and so much what Shakespeare wanted to hear, he wouldn't have argued with it for the world. Nick Skeres saw something else: "Without the dons to back 'em, we'll revenge ourselves on the damned howling Irish wolves, too."

"Ay." Shakespeare nodded. He remembered-how could he forget? — the shivers Isabella and Albert's Irish mercenaries had always raised in him. "Let them have their deserts for bringing terror to honest Englishmen." What England had done in Ireland never entered his mind. He thought only of what England might soon do in Ireland once more.

Phelippes also nodded, wisely. "That lieth already in train," he said.

"Good." Shakespeare and Skeres spoke together. They might fall out on many things. Concerning Irishmen, they were of one mind.

Kate brought more sack several times. Shakespeare knew his head would pound come morning.

Morning would be time enough to worry about it, though. Meanwhile. Meanwhile, Nick Skeres emptied his goblet one last time, got to his feet, and burst into song:

"The master, the swabber, the boatswain, and I,

The gunner and his mate

Loved Moll, Meg, and Marian, and Margery,

But none of us cared for Kate.

For she had a tongue with a tang,

Would cry to a sailor, go hang!

She loved not the savor of tar nor of pitch,

Yet a. poet might scratch her wherere she did itch,

Then to sea, boys, and let her go hang!"

Several people in the ordinary laughed. A couple of men clapped their hands. Shakespeare spoke to Thomas Phelippes: "Get this swabber hence forthwith, ere he swab the floor." He clenched his fists. He'd had enough wine to be ready to brawl if Phelippes said no.

But Phelippes answered, "And so I shall, Sir William." He turned to Skeres. "Come along, good Sir Nicholas. You've taken on too much water; your wit sinks fast."

"Water?" Skeres shook his head. "No, by God. 'Twas finest Sherris-sack."

"All the worse-wine'll sink what floats on water." Phelippes steered him towards the door. He nodded once more to Shakespeare. "Give you good night, Sir William."

"And to you, Sir Thomas, so that you get him away," Shakespeare said. Skeres started singing again.

Phelippes pushed him out the door and into the street.

Kate came over to Shakespeare. "That Sir Nicholas is truly a knight?" she asked.

"Methinks he is a knight indeed," Shakespeare answered. "I trust not his word alone, but Master Phelippes-Sir Thomas-I do credit. Whate'er Skeres might do, he'd not lie about such business."

The serving woman shook her head in bemusement. "A strange new world, that hath such people in't."

"Ay, belike." But after that careless agreement passed Shakespeare's lips, he realized Kate's remark held more truth than he'd first seen. Newly free after ten years under Spanish dominion, England could hardly help being a strange place. Those who'd served the dons were paying for it; those who'd suffered under them were raised high. Few had dared trust very far under Isabella and Albert, and a good many might not dare trust very far under Elizabeth, either.

Kate's thoughts stayed on the personal. "He had no call to sing of me so," she said, "nor of you, neither."

"He's a cunning cove, Nick Skeres, but not so cunning as not to think himself more cunning than he is,"

Shakespeare said.

He watched Kate work through that and smile when she got to the bottom of it. She went off to bring supper to a couple of men at another table. He waited patiently, sipping wine, till the last of the other customers went home. Then, Kate carrying a candle, they walked up the stairs to her room. As she began to undress by that dim, flickering light, she turned away from him, all at once shy. Her voice low and troubled, she said, "A player may love a serving woman, but shall a knight?"

In that cramped chamber, one step took him to her. He caught her in his arms. Under his hands, her flesh was soft and smooth and warm. He bent close to her ear to answer, "Assuredly he shall, an't please her that he do."

She twisted around towards him. Her kiss was fierce. "What thinkest thou?" she said.

His mouth trailed down the side of her neck to her bared breasts. He lingered there some little while. She murmured and pressed him to her. "Ah, sweet, there's beggary in the love that can be reckoned," he said.

He couldn't have told which of them drew the other to her narrow bed.

Afterwards, though, she fought tears while he dressed. When he tried to soothe her, she shook her head.

"Thou'rt grown a great man," she said. "Wilt not find a grand lady to match thee?"

"Why, so have I done," he replied, and kissed her once more.

"Go to!" She laughed, though the tears hadn't gone away. "Thou'rt the lyingest knave in Christendom, and I love thee for't." She got out of bed to put on her own warm woolen nightgown. "Now begone, and may thou soon come hither again, sweet Sir William."

"Alas that I go," he said, and took the candle stub to light his way downstairs.

He was almost back to his lodging-house before pausing to wonder how his wife would greet the news of his knighthood. When he did, he wished he hadn't. Anne's first worry, without a doubt, would be over how much money it was worth. He shrugged. What with one thing and another, she wouldn't need to fret about that. He had plenty to send back to Stratford. She and his daughters would not want. Past that.

Past that, Anne wouldn't care, and neither did he.

His head did ache when he got up in the morning. A mug of the Widow Kendall's good ale with his breakfast porridge helped ease the pounding. The reticent sun of late autumn was just rising when he started for the door. Sir William he might be, but he had a play to put on at the Theatre.

Or so he thought, till the door opened when he was still a couple of strides from it. A tough-looking fellow with a rapier on his belt came in. "Sir William Shakespeare," he said. It wasn't a question.

Even so, Shakespeare wondered if he ought to admit who he was. After a couple of heartbeats'

hesitation, he nodded, asking, "What would you?"

"You are ordered to come with me."

"Ordered, say you? By whom? Whither?"

"By her Majesty, the Queen; to Westminster," the man snapped. "Will you come, or do you presume to say her nay?"

"I come," Shakespeare said meekly. The Theatre would have to do without him for the morning.

He got another surprise when he went outside: a horse waited there to take him to Westminster, yet another armed man holding its head. The beast looked enormous. Shakespeare mounted so awkwardly, the bravo who'd gone in to get him let out a scornful snort. He didn't care. He hadn't ridden a horse since hurrying back to Stratford to say farewell to his son Hamnet, and he couldn't remember his last time on horseback before that. He nodded to the tough-looking man. "Lay on, good sir, and I'll essay to follow."

"Be it so, then," the man said, doubt in his voice.

He urged his horse forward with reins, voice, and the pressure of his knees against its sides. Shakespeare did the same. His mount, a good-natured and well-trained mare, obeyed him with so little fuss that, by the time he'd gone a couple of blocks, he felt as much centaur as man. The man who'd held the poet's horse brought up the rear on his own beast.

"Way! Make way!" the bravo in the lead bawled whenever they had to slow for foot traffic or other riders or wagons and carts. "Make way for the Queen's business!" Sometimes the offenders would move aside, sometimes they wouldn't. When they didn't, Shakespeare's escort bawled other, more pungent, things.

Outside the entrance to St. Paul's, the head and quartered members of a corpse were mounted on spears. They were all splashed with tar to slow rot and help hold scavengers at bay. Despite that, Shakespeare recognized the lean, even ascetic, features of Robert Parsons before he saw the placards announcing the demise of the Catholic Archbishop of Canterbury. SIC SEMPER TYRANNIS! one of those placards declared.

Was't for this you so long ate the bitter bread of exile? Shakespeare wondered. Was't for this you at last came home? Parsons might have answered ay; he had the strength and courage of his belief no less than his foes of theirs. And much good he got from them, Shakespeare thought. A rook, the bare base of its beak pale against black feathers, fluttered down and landed on top of the dead churchman's head. Tar or no tar, it pecked at Parsons' cheek.

More bodies and parts of bodies lined the road from London to Winchester. Rooks and carrion crows and jackdaws and sooty ravens fluttered up from them as riders went past, then returned to their interrupted feasting. Looking back over his shoulder at Shakespeare, his escort said, "May those birds wax as fat on the flesh of traitors as Frenchmen's geese crammed full with figs and nuts."

Shakespeare managed a nod he feared feeble. He rejoiced that England was free. But revenge, no matter how sweet at first, grew harsh to him. He saw the need; he would have been blind not to see the need.

But he could not rejoice in it. Others, many others, felt otherwise.

As Isabella and Albert had before her-and, indeed, as she often had before them-Elizabeth stayed at Whitehall. Servitors who'd likely bowed and scraped before Philip II's daughter and her husband shot Shakespeare scornful glances for his plain doublet and hose. But their manner changed remarkably when they found out who he was.

Elizabeth's throne was off-center on the dais. Till a few weeks before, two thrones had stood there. At the Queen's right hand, on a lower chair, sat Sir Robert Cecil. Since he was small and crookbacked, he had to tilt his chin up to speak to his sovereign.

Making his lowest leg to Queen Elizabeth, Shakespeare murmured, "Your Majesty."

"You may stand straight, Sir William. God give you good day." As Elizabeth had been at the Theatre, she was armored against time with wig and paint and splendid gown. Only her bad teeth still shouted out how old she'd grown.

"I am your servant, your Majesty," Shakespeare said. "But command me and, if it be in my poor power, it shall be yours. By my troth, I. "

The Queen's eyes remained sharp enough to pierce like swords. Under that stern gaze, his words stumbled to a stop. He hardly dared breathe. Then Elizabeth smiled, and it was as if spring routed winter.

"I called you here not to serve me, but that I might reward you according to my promise when I made you knight," she said. "That you shall not want, it pleaseth me that Sir Robert settle upon you the sum of. " She looked to Cecil.

"Three hundred fifty pound," he said.

"Gra-Gramercy," Shakespeare stammered, bowing deeply. Along with what he'd got from Sir Robert's father and from Don Diego for Boudicca and King Philip, he was suddenly a man of no small wealth. "I am ever in your debt." "Not so, but rather the reverse," Elizabeth said. "How joyed I am that so good event hath followed so many troublesome endeavors, laborious cares, and heedful undertakings, you may guess, but I best can witness, and do protest that your success standeth equal to the most thereof. And so God ever bless you in all your actions. For myself, I can but acknowledge your diligence and dangerous adventure, and cherish and judge of you as your grateful sovereign. What you would have of me, ask, and I will spare no charge, but give with both hands. Honor here I love, for he who hateth honor hateth God above."

Shakespeare gaped. Did that, could that, mean what it seemed to? He could name whatever he wanted in all the world, and the Queen would give it to him? Before he could begin to speak, Sir Robert Cecil did, his voice dry as usual: "Sir William, I say this only-seek no more gold of her Majesty, for she hath it not to give, England yet being all moils and disorders."

"I understand." Shakespeare hadn't intended to ask for more gold. That would have been like asking for a fourth wish from a fairy who had given three: a good way to lose all he might have gained. He paused to gather his thoughts, then spoke directly to Elizabeth: "Your Majesty, when a lad in Stratford I made a marriage I do repent me of. Romish doctrines being once more o'erthrown"-he saw in his mind's eye the rook landing on Robert Parsons' tarred head outside St. Paul's-"you may order it dissevered, an it please you."

"Have you issue from the said union?" Elizabeth asked.

"Two living daughters, your Majesty, and a son now two years dead," he answered. Hamnet, poor Hamnet. "I would settle on the girls' mother a hundred pound of your generous bounty, that they may know no want all the days of their lives."

"A hundred fifty pound," Elizabeth said sharply. Shakespeare blinked. He hadn't expected that kind of dicker. But he nodded. So did the Queen. She turned to Sir Robert. "Let it be made known to clerks and clerics that this is my will, to which they are to offer no impediment."

"Just so, your Majesty," Cecil said.

The Queen gave her attention back to Shakespeare. "Here, then, is one thing settled. Be there more?"

Three wishes, he thought again, dizzily. "Your Majesty will know," he said, "that whilst I wrote Boudicca I wrote also another play, this latter one entitled King Philip."

Elizabeth nodded. "I do know it. Say on, Sir William. You pique my curiosity. What would you in aid of this King Philip?"

Shakespeare took a deep breath. "King Philip the man is dead, for which all England may thank a God kind and just. By your gracious leave, your Majesty, I'd fain have King Philip live upon the stage."

"What?" Queen Elizabeth's eyebrows came down and together in a fierce frown. He'd startled her, and angered her, too. "This play you writ for the dons, for the invaders and despoilers and occupiers"-she plainly used the word in its half-obscene sense-"of our beloved homeland, praying-I do hope-it would ne'er be given, you'd now see performed? How have you the effrontery to presume this of me?"

Licking his lips, Shakespeare answered, "I ask it for but one reason: that in King Philip lieth some of my best work, the which I'd not have go for naught."

Would she understand? All he had to make his mark on the world were the words he set on paper. He marshaled no armies, no fleets. He issued no decrees. He didn't so much as make gloves, as his father had. Without words, he was nothing, not even wind and air.

Instead of answering directly, Elizabeth turned to Sir Robert. "You have read the play whereof he speaketh?"

Cecil nodded. "I have, your Majesty. Sir Thomas Phelippes, whilst in the employ of Don Diego, made shift to acquaint my father and me therewith."

"And what think you on it?" the Queen inquired.

"Your Majesty, my opinion marches with Sir William's: though Philip be dead, this play deserves to live.

It is most artificial, and full of clever conceits."

The Queen's eyes narrowed in thought. "Philip did spare me where he might have slain," she said musingly, at least half to herself, "e'en if, as may well be, he reckoned the same no great mercy, I being mured up behind Tower walls. And I pledged my faith to you, Sir William, you should have that which your heart desireth, wherefore let it be as you say, and let King Philip be acted without my hindrance-indeed, with my good countenance. 'Tis noble to salute the foe, the same pricking against my honor not but conducing thereto."

"Again, your Majesty, many thanks," Shakespeare said. "By your gracious leave here, you show the world your nobleness of mind."

Judging from her self-satisfied smile, that touched Elizabeth's vanity. "Be there aught else you would have of me?" she asked him.

He nodded. "One thing more, an it please you, also touching somewhat upon King Philip."

"Go on," she said.

"A Spanish officer, a Lieutenant de Vega, was to play Juan de IdiA?quez, the King's secretary. He being now a captive, I'd beg of you his freedom and return to his own land."

"De Vega. Methinks I have heard this name aforetimes." Elizabeth frowned, as if trying to remember where. A tiny shrug suggested she couldn't. "Why seek you this? Is he your particular friend?"

"My particular friend? Nay, I'd say not so, though we liked each the other as well as we might, each being loyal to his own country. But he is a poet and a maker of plays in the Spanish tongue. If poets come not to other poets' aid, who shall? No one, not in all the world."

"De Vega. Lope de Vega." Queen Elizabeth's gaze sharpened. "I have heard the name indeed: a maker of comedies, not so? The guards at the Tower did with much approbation speak of some play of his offered before the usurpers this summer gone by. Following Italian, I could betimes make out their Spanish."

"Your Majesty, I have found the same," Shakespeare said.

"You are certain he is captive and not slain?"

"I am, having ta'en him myself," Shakespeare said.

"Very well: let him go back to Spain and make comedies for the dons, provided he first take oath never again to bear arms against England. Absent that oath, captive he shall remain." Elizabeth turned to Robert Cecil. "See you to it, Sir Robert."

"Assuredly, your Majesty," Cecil said. "This de Vega is known to me: not the worst of men." Coming from him, that sounded like high praise. "A kind thought, Sir William, to set him at liberty."

"I thank your honor," Shakespeare said. "It were remiss of me also to say no word for Mistress Sellis, a widow dwelling at my lodging-house. Her quick wit"- amongst other things, the poet thought-"balked Lieutenant de Vega of learning we purposed presenting Boudicca in place of King Philip, and haply of thwarting us in the said enterprise."

"Let her be rewarded therefor," Elizabeth said. She asked Sir Robert Cecil, "Think you ten pound sufficeth?"

"Peradventure twenty were better," he said.

Elizabeth haggled like a housewife buying apples in springtime. "Fifteen," she declared. "Fifteen, and not a farthing more."

Sir Robert sighed. "Fifteen, then. Just as you say, your Majesty, so shall it be."

"Ay, that well befits a Queen." Elizabeth's face and voice hardened. "As who should know more clearly than I, having thrown away-upon my troth, cruelly thrown away! — in harshest confinement ten years of this life I shall have back never again, wherein not in the least respected was one single word from my lips." For a moment, she seemed to imagine herself still in the Tower of London, to have forgotten Robert Cecil and Shakespeare and her guardsmen and the very throne on which she sat. Then she gathered herself. "Be there aught else required for your contentment, Sir William?"

"Your Majesty, an I may not live content by light of your kind favor, I make me but a poor figment of a man," Shakespeare replied.

"A courtesy worthy of a courtier," the Queen said, which might have been praise or might have been something else altogether. "Very well, then. You may go."

"God bless your Majesty." Shakespeare bowed one last time.

"He doth bless me indeed," Elizabeth said. "For long and long I wondered, but. ay, He blesseth me greatly." Shakespeare turned away so he wouldn't see tears in his sovereign's eyes.

Rain pattered down on Lope de Vega. It hadn't snowed yet, for which he thanked God. Next to him, another Spanish soldier coughed and coughed and coughed. Consumption, Lope thought gloomily. He was just glad the black plague hadn't broken out among his miserable countrymen. No snow. No plague. Such were the things for which he had to be grateful these days.

And his headaches came less often. He supposed he should have been grateful for that, too, but he would have been more grateful to have no headaches at all. On the other hand, if he hadn't been thwacked senseless and left for dead, he probably would have died in the savage fighting that had claimed so many Spaniards. He-cautiously-shook his head. Damned if I'll be grateful for almost having my head smashed like a melon dropped on the cobbles.

An Englishman-an officer, by his basket-hilted rapier and plumed hat-strutted into the bear-baiting arena. Lope paid him no special attention. Plenty of Englishmen and — women still came to the arena to look over the Spanish prisoners as if they were the animals that had formerly dwelt here. Lope had seen Catalina IbaA±ez on her Englishman's arm only that once. One more small, very small, thing for which to be grateful.

Then the officer took out a scrap of paper and peered down at it, shielding it from the rain with his left hand. "Lope de Vega!" he bawled. "Where's Lieutenant Lope de Vega? Lope de Vega, stand forth!"

"I am here." De Vega got to his feet. "What would you, sir?"

"Come you with me, and straightaway," the Englishman replied.

"God's good fortune go with you, senor," the consumptive soldier said.

" Gracias," Lope said, and then, louder and in English, "I obey."

The officer led him out of the arena. Only a few feet from where Lope's two mistresses had discovered each other, the fellow said, "You are to be enlarged, Lieutenant, so that you give your holy oath nevermore to bear arms against England and presently to quit her soil. Be it your will to accept the said terms and swear your oath?"

"Before God, sir, you mean this? You seek not to make me your jest?" Lope asked, hardly daring to believe his ears.

"Before God, Lieutenant, no such wicked thing do I," the English officer replied. "The order for your freedom-provided you swear the oath-comes from Sir Robert Cecil, by direction of her Majesty, the Queen. I ask again: will you swear it?"

"Right gladly will I," de Vega said. "By God and the Virgin and all the saints, I vow that, if it be your pleasure to set me at liberty, I shall never again take up arms against this kingdom, and shall remove from it fast as ever I may. Doth it like you well enough, sir, or would you fain have me swear somewhat more?"

" 'Twas a round Romish oath, but I looked for none other from a Spaniard," the officer said. "I am satisfied indeed, Lieutenant, and declare you free. God go with you."

Lope bowed. "And with you, for your generous chivalry." He hesitated, then let out an embarrassed chuckle. "I pray your pardon for a grateful man's foolish question, but how am I to get me hence without a ha'penny to my name? — for my purse was slit or ever I was ta'en."

"Did you ask me this, I was told to give you these: two good gold angels, a pound in all." After returning the bow, the Englishman set the coins in Lope's hand. "Sir William saith, Godspeed and and safe journey homeward."

"Sir William?" Lope scratched his head. "I know none of that name and title but Lord Burghley, may he rest in peace." He made the sign of the cross.

The English officer started to do the same, then abruptly caught himself and scowled. He forgot he is a Catholic no more, de Vega thought with amusement he dared not show. The Englishman said, "Whether you ken him or no, Lieutenant, he doth know you. Which beareth the greater weight?"

"Oh, that he know me, assuredly. And I do thank you for conveying to me his kind gift." For not stealing it, he meant. The English officer had to think someone would check on him.

"You are welcome." The officer pointed north, towards the wharves of Southwark and, across the Thames, London. "There, belike, you'll find a ship to hie you to France or the Netherlands."

A man strode towards the bear-baiting arena: a tall fellow about Lope's own age, with neat chin whiskers and a high forehead made higher by a receding hairline. "There, belike, I'll find a friend." De Vega waved and raised his voice to call, "Will! Thought you to find me within? You're come too late, for they've set me free."

"God give you good day, Master Lope," Shakespeare answered. "And if you be new-enlarged, He hath given you a good day indeed. Will you dine with me?"

"I would, but I may not, for I am sworn to quit England instanter."

"Who'd grudge your going with a full belly?" Shakespeare said. "To an ordinary first; and thence, the docks."

Lope let himself be persuaded. After the prisoner's rations he'd endured, he couldn't resist the chance for a hearty meal. Half a roast capon, washed down with Rhenish wine, made a new man of him, though Shakespeare had to lend him a knife with which to eat. He stabbed the fowl's gizzard and popped it into his mouth. When he'd swallowed the chewy morsel, he said, "You do me a great kindness: the more so as I would have slain you when last we met."

"That was in another country," Shakespeare said-not quite literally true, as Isabella and Albert had fled the night before, but close enough. The English poet added, "And besides, the witch lives yet."

"A great sorrowful pity she doth live," Lope said.

"None take it amiss you served Spain as best you might," Shakespeare said. "Mistress Sellis did likewise for England."

" Puta, " Lope muttered, but let it go.

"At Broken Wharf in London lieth the Oom Karl," Shakespeare remarked. "She takes on board woolen goods, bound for Ostend and sundry other Flanders ports. Might she serve your need?"

"Peradventure she might." De Vega sighed. "A swag-bellied Hollander ship, by her name, with a swag-bellied Hollander captain at the con. I'd liefer not put my faith in such, but"-another sigh-"betimes we do as needs must, not as likes us."

"There you speak sooth, as I well know," Shakespeare said.

"Ah?" Lope said. "Sits the wind so? Which reckon you the play under compulsion, that which holp to free your heretic Queen, or that which would have praised a Catholic King?"

To his surprise, Shakespeare answered, "Both. Nor knew I which would play, nor which be reckoned treason, until the very day."

"Truly?"

"Truly," the English poet said, and Lope could not help believing him.

"That is a marvel, I'll not deny," he said, and rose to his feet. Shakespeare got up, too. "The Oom Karl, said you?" he asked. Shakespeare nodded. Lope had asked only for form's sake. He remembered the name of the ship. It might indeed serve him well. Ostend lay within the Spanish Netherlands. From there, he could easily find a ship bound for Spain and home.

Home! Even the word seemed strange. He'd spent almost a third of his life-and almost all his adult life-here in England. What would Madrid be like after ten years, under a new King? Would anyone there remember him? Would that printer Captain GuzmA?n knew have put his plays before the world?

That might help ease his way back into the Spanish community of actors and poets. He dared hope.

"I'm for Broken Wharf, then," he said.

"Good fortune go with you." Shakespeare set a penny on the table between them. "Here: this for the wherryman, to take you o'er the Thames."

"My thanks." Lope scooped up the coin. "You English be generous to your foes, I own. This fine dinner and a penny from you, Master Will, and I have a pound in gold of some English knight to pay my way towards Spain."

"Do you indeed?" Shakespeare murmured. He gave de Vega an odd, almost sour smile. "Belike we think us well shut of you."

"Belike you should." Lope came around the table, stood on tiptoe, and kissed Shakespeare on the cheek. "God guard thee, friend."

"Spoke like a sprightful noble gentleman," Shakespeare said, and gave back the kiss. "If we do meet again, why, we shall smile; if not, why then this parting was well made."

"Just so." Lope left the ordinary without looking back. When he got to the river, he waved for a boatman.

Waving in reply, the fellow glided up. He touched the brim of his cap. "Whither would you, sir?"

"Broken Wharf, as close by the Oom Karl as you may," de Vega replied.

"Let's see your penny," the wherryman said. Lope gave him the coin-stamped, he saw, with Isabella and Albert's images. Well, they'd fled England before him. The wherryman touched his cap again. His grin showed a couple of missing teeth. "Broken Wharf it shall be, your honor, and right yarely, too."

He did put his back into the stroke, and his heart into the abuse he bawled at other boats on the river. He had to fight the current; Broken Wharf lay some distance upstream from London Bridge, almost to St. Paul's.

As the wharf neared, Lope pointed to a three-masted carrack tied up there. "The Oom Karl?" he asked.

"Ay, sir, the same." The wherryman's voice suddenly rose to a furious scream: "Give way, thou unlicked bear-whelp!" De Vega, far from the strongest of swimmers, wondered if he could make it to the carrack after what looked like a sure collision. Somehow, though, his man's boat and the other didn't smash together. He decided God might possibly love him after all. The wherryman took it all in stride. He glided up to the base of the wharf. "We are arrived, sir. Good fortune go with you."

"Gramercy." Lope scrambled out of the boat. He walked up the wharf towards the Oom Karl. A tall man with a bushy blond beard and a gold hoop in one ear stood on deck, calling orders in guttural Dutch to the crew and cursing fluently in English at the longshoremen hauling crates and bundles aboard the ship. "God give you good day," Lope called to him, also in English. "You're bound for Ostend? What's your fare?"

A clay pipe clenched between the tall man's teeth twitched. " SA-, seA±or, we're bound for Ostend," he replied in Spanish as quick and confident as his English and Dutch. To catch Lope's accent from so little, he had to have a good ear as well as a clever tongue. "As for the fare-two ducats should do."

Two ducats made ten shillings-that would swallow one of Lope's precious and irreplaceable angels. "I have English money," he said, returning to his own mother tongue. "I'll give you five shillings."

"No," the fellow said, his voice flat and hard. "A Spaniard leaving England's in no place to bargain. You'll pay what I tell you, and thank God and the Blessed Virgin it isn't more. Yes or no?"

De Vega knew he had no choice. If he stayed here, he'd be fair game, and how the Englishmen would enjoy pulling him down! Once he got to Ostend, he could hope for the charity of his own countrymen there. He nodded and choked out the word he had to say: "Yes."

"Come aboard, then, and give me your money," the blond-bearded man said around his pipe. "We're fully laden, or near enough as makes no difference. We'll weigh anchor and set sail when the tide turns."

" Alles goed, Kapitein Adams," a sailor said as Lope handed the piratical-looking skipper his gold coin.

That was close enough to English to let Lope follow it. It also surprised him. "Captain Adams?" he asked.

"You're an Englishman? I took you for Dutch."

"Will Adams, at your service," Adams said in English, and made a leg at him. "Very much at your service, now I have your angel." He flipped the coin up into the air, caught it, and stuck it in his belt pouch. "Will you go below now, or stay on deck until we sail?"

"By your leave, I'd liefer stay," de Vega answered.

"As you wish: so I told you." After that, Captain Adams went back to Dutch. The crew obeyed him as if he were one of their own countrymen. Before long, the last longshoreman scurried off the carrack. The sailors stowed the gangplank. Up came the anchors, men straining at the capstans at bow and stern. They brought in the lines that bound the Oom Karl to the wharf. As she began to slide downstream with the current, sails blossomed on her masts.

London Bridge loomed ahead. Will Adams skillfully steered the ship between two piers. Her masts missed scraping against the planking of the bridge by only a couple of feet. Had the Thames run higher, she couldn't have got free.

There beyond the bridge stood the Tower of London. Lope stared at it as the carrack glided past. Then he looked east, towards the North Sea. Soon London-soon all of England-would lie behind him. In spite of everything, he was on his way home.

Kate's eyes got big and round. "A bill of divorcement?" she whispered.

"Ay." Shakespeare nodded. "I begged it of the Queen, and she gave it me." He took her hands in his.

"That being so, art thou fain to wed me?"

"I will. With all my heart I will, dear Will. But. " She hesitated, then nodded, as if deciding the question had to be asked. "But what of your. your lady wife in Stratford? What of your daughters there?"

"They shall not want, not for nothing. The Queen hath settled on them a hundred and fifty pound."

Shakespeare didn't mention that that was part of what she'd given him. He could wish it were otherwise, but knew better than to complain. Never in all his dreams had he imagined getting so much of what he wanted.

Kate's eyes widened again. "A hundred and fifty pound? Jesu! A princely sum, in sooth. But wherein lieth the justice, they having more than thou when thou hast done so much for Elizabeth and they naught?"

"Fear not, my sweeting, for justice is done: they have not more than I," Shakespeare assured her, and her eyes went wide once more. He nodded. "By my halidom, Kate, 'tis true."

"Right glad was I to wed thee, taking thee for no richer than any other player who might here chance to sup," Kate said. "An't be otherwise. An't be otherwise, why, right glad am I."

"And I," Shakespeare said. He kissed her. The kiss took on a life of its own. They still clung to each other when the door opened and a customer came in.

The man swept off his hat and bowed in their direction as they sprang apart. "Your pardon, I pray ye. I meant not to disturb ye."

"You are welcome, sir," Kate said as the fellow sat down. "What would you have?"

"Some of what you gave your tall gentleman there'd like me well," he replied, "but belike he hath the whole of't. That failing, what's the threepenny supper this even?"

"Mutton stew."

"Is it indeed? Well, a bit o' mutton's always welcome." The man winked at Shakespeare. Kate squeaked indignantly. Shakespeare took an angry step forward. The customer raised a hand. "Nay, sir; nay, mistress. I meant no harm by it. 'Twas but a jest. For mine own part, I am one that loves an inch of raw mutton, and I am well-provided with three bouncing wenches. I'd not quarrel over a foolish quibble."

Shakespeare didn't want to quarrel, either, but he also didn't want to look like a coward in front of Kate.

He sent her a questioning glance. Only when she nodded did he give the other man a short, stiff bow.

"Let it go, then."

"Many thanks, sir; many thanks. For your kindness, may I stand you to a mug of beer? And your lady as well, certes." The stranger lifted his hat again. "Cedric Hayes, at your service. I am glad you see, sir, that where a man may fight at need, 'tis not that he needs must fight." Hayes plucked a knife from his belt.

With a motion so fast Shakespeare could hardly see it, he flung the blade. It stuck, quivering, in the planking of a window frame. An instant later, another knife thudded home just below it.

" 'Sblood!" Shakespeare said. "Any man who fought with you would soon repent of it, belike for aye."

"Ah, but you knew that not when you chose courtesy." Hayes rose, went over to the knives so he could pull them free, and sheathed them again. " 'Tis a mountebank's trick, I own, but mountebank I am, and so entitled to't."

"Might you show this art upon the stage, Master Hayes?" Shakespeare asked.

"Gladly would I show it wheresoever I be paid for the showing," the knife-thrower replied. "Who are you, sir, and what would you have me do?"

Shakespeare gave his name. Proudly, Kate corrected him: " Sir William Shakespeare."

"Ah." Cedric Hayes bowed. "Very much at your service, Sir William. I have seen somewhat of your work, and it liked me well. I ask again, what would you have me do?"

"In some of the company's plays- Romeo and Juliet and Prince of Denmark spring first to mind-your art might enliven that which is already writ. An you show yourself trusty, I shall write you larger parts in dramas yet to come."

"I am not like to a trusty squire who did run away," Hayes said. "Where I say I shall be, I shall; what I say I shall do, that likewise."

"Most excellent," Shakespeare said. "Know you the Theatre, beyond Bishopsgate?"

"Certes, sir. Many a time and oft have I stood 'mongst the groundlings to laugh at Will Kemp's fooling or hear Dick Burbage bombast out a blank verse."

Burbage wouldn't have been happy to hear Kemp named ahead of him. Shakespeare resolved never to mention that. He said, "Go you thither at ten o' the clock tomorrow. I shall be there, and Burbage as well.

We'll put you through your paces, that we may know your different several gaits."

"Gramercy, Master Shakespeare-Sir William, I should say." Hayes raised his mug. "A fortunate meeting."

"Your good health," Shakespeare said, and he drank, too.

After Cedric Hayes finished his supper, he left the ordinary. Shakespeare got out pen and ink and paper and set to work. What a relief, to be able to write without having to fear the gallows or worse if the wrong person happened to glance over his shoulder at the wrong moment!

He didn't have to look up anxiously whenever someone new came into the ordinary, either. Being able to concentrate on his work meant he got more done. It also meant he did look up, in surprise, when a man loomed over him. "Oh," he said, setting down his pen and nodding to the newcomer. "Give you good even, Constable."

"God give you good Eden as well," Walter Strawberry replied gravely. "May you obtain to Paradise."

"My thanks," Shakespeare said. "Why come you hither?"

Before answering, Strawberry grabbed a stool from a nearby table and sat down across from the poet.

"Why, sir? Why, for that I may hold converse with you. But converting's thirsty work, and so"-he raised his voice and waved to Kate-"a cup of wine, and sprackly, too!"

"Anon, sir, anon," she said, and went back to whatever she was doing.

When the wine didn't arrive at once, Constable Strawberry sent Shakespeare an aggrieved look. "

"Anon,' saith she, yet she comes not. Am I then anonymous, that she doth fail to know me?"

Shakespeare scratched his head. Was Strawberry garbling things as usual, or had he made that jest on purpose? Probably not, not by his expression. Shakespeare gave Kate a tiny nod. She rolled her eyes, but brought the constable what he'd asked for.

"I thank you," he said grudgingly. "I'd thank you more had you come sooner."

"There's the difference 'twixt our sexes," Kate agreed, her voice sweet.

"Eh? What mean you?" Strawberry demanded. Kate pretended not to hear him. Shakespeare stared down at the tabletop so the constable wouldn't see his face. Strawberry muttered to himself, then spoke aloud: "I thank God I am not a woman, to be touched with so many giddy offenses."

"Just so, sir," Shakespeare said. "Why are you come? I asked aforetimes, but you said not."

Strawberry frowned. Maybe he had trouble remembering why he'd come to the ordinary; Shakespeare wouldn't have been surprised. But then his heavy features brightened. "Methought you'd fain hear the report from mine own lips."

"Better the report from your lips, sir, than from a pistol," Shakespeare said gravely. "But of what report speak you?"

"Why, the one I am about to tell, of course," the constable replied.

"What is the point? The gist? The yolk? The meat?"

" 'Tis meet indeed I should tell you," Strawberry said.

"And as for the point, it lieth 'neath his hat," Kate muttered.

"What's that? What's that? Am I resulted? 'Swounds, no good result'll spring from that, I do declare."

"Spell out your meaning plain, then," Shakespeare urged.

"And so I shall, by bowels and constipants," Constable Strawberry said. "You have denied acquaintance with the felonious cove hight Ingram Frizer."

"I do deny it still," Shakespeare said. Yes, the two men he knew Frizer had killed had died at the order of Sir Robert Cecil or his father. Yes, Sir Robert sat at Elizabeth's right hand these days. But who could say how many others Frizer had slain? Who could say how many he'd robbed or beaten? Anyone who admitted knowing him was either a fool or a felonious rogue in his own right-Constable Strawberry, for once, hadn't misspoken in describing Frizer so.

As if the poet had avowed knowing Frizer rather than denying it, Strawberry said, "Belike you will rejoice to hear he is catched."

"If he be the high lawyer and murtherer you say, what honest man would not rejoice?" Shakespeare said.

"May he have his just deserts."

"Nay, no marchpane, no sweetmeats, no confits for that wretch," the constable replied. "He lieth in gyves in the Clink, and lieth also, in's teeth, in declaiming he hath done naught amiss. An I mistake me not, there's plenty a miss he hath done could give him the lie, too."

"I know not. If truth be known, I care not, neither," Shakespeare said. "And in aid of misses, I care but for one." He smiled at Kate. She came over the stand behind him and set her hands on his shoulders.

"Ah? Sits the wind so?" Walter Strawberry asked. Shakespeare and Kate both nodded. He reached up and put his right hand on hers. Strawberry beamed. "Much happiness to you, then-and may you know no misfortune, Master Shakespeare."

Again, Shakespeare wondered whether he used his words cleverly or just blindly. Before he could decide, Kate said, "Style him as is proper, Master Constable: he is Sir William."

"You, sir, a knight?" Strawberry said.

"I am," Shakespeare admitted.

"Marry, I knew it not." Constable Strawberry looked from him to Kate and back again. "And marry you shall, meseems. Well-a-day! I do congregate you, and wish you all domestic infelicity."

Kate growled, down deep in her throat. Now Shakespeare forestalled her. Patting her hand, he said, "I thank you in the spirit with which you offer your kindly wishes."

"Spirits? Not a bit of 'em, Sir William-'tis wine before me." Strawberry got to his feet. "And now, having come, I must needs away. Good night, good night." He lumbered out of the ordinary.

The poet stared after him, confused one last time. Was that Good night, good night or Good night, good knight or perhaps even Good knight, good night? Shakespeare decided he didn't care. He stood up, too, and kissed his intended, and forgot all about Walter Strawberry.