Ruled Britannia

VII

Lope De Vega looked up from the paper. "I pray you, forgive me, Master Shakespeare," he said, "but your character is not easy for one unaccustomed to it."

"You are not the first to tell me so," the English poet answered, "and I thus conclude the stricture holds some truth."

They sat on the edge of the stage in the Theatre, legs dangling down towards the dirt where the groundlings would stand. Behind them, swords clashed as players practiced their moves for the afternoon's show. Looking over his shoulder, Lope could tell at a glance which of them had used a blade in earnest and which only strutted on the stage.

But that was not his worry. The nearly illegible words on the sheet in his left hand were. He pointed to one passage that had, once he'd deciphered it, particularly pleased him. "This is your heretic Queen Elizabeth, speaking to his Most Catholic Majesty's commander as she goes to the Tower?"

Shakespeare nodded. "Just so."

"It hath the ring of truth," Lope said, and began to read:

" Stay, Spanish brethren! Gracious conqueror,

Victorious Parma, rue the tears I shed,

A mother's tears in passion for her land:

And if thy Spain were ever dear to thee,

O! think England to be as dear to me.

Sufficeth not that I am brought hither

To beautify thy triumphs and thy might,

Captive to thee and to thy Spanish yoke,

But must my folk be slaughter'd in the streets,

For valiant doings in their country's cause?

O! if to fight for lord and commonweal

Were piety in thine, it is in these.' "

"Will it serve?" Shakespeare asked anxiously.

"Most excellent well," Lope replied at once. "It is, in sooth, a fine touch, her pleading for mercy thus.

How came you to shape it so?"

"I bethought me of what she might tell King Philip himself, did he come to London, then made her speak to his general those same words," Shakespeare said.

"Ah." Sitting, Lope couldn't bow, but did take off his hat and incline his head to show how much the answer pleased him. "Most clever. And then the Duke of Parma's reply is perfect-perfect, I tell you." He read again:

" At mine uncle's bidding, I spare your life,

For mercy is above this sceptr'd sway:

'Tis mighty in the mightiest; it becomes

The throned monarch better than his crown;

It is enthroned in the hearts of kings,

And blesseth him that gives and him that takes.' "

"If it please you, I am content," the Englishman murmured.

"Please me? You are too modest, sir!" Lope cried. While Shakespeare-modestly-shook his head, the Spaniard went on, "Would King Philip might read these wondrous words you write in his behalf. As I live, he'd praise 'em. Know you the Escorial, outside Madrid?"

"I have heard of't," Shakespeare said.

" 'Twill be his Most Catholic Majesty's monument forevermore," Lope said. "And your King Philip, meseems, will live as long."

"May he have many years," Shakespeare said in a low voice. "May this play remain for years unstaged."

Lope crossed himself. "Yes, may it be so, though I fear me the day will come sooner than that." He tapped the sheet of paper with a fingernail. "I shall take back to my superiors a report most excellent of this."

"Gramercy," the Englishman told him.

"No, no, no." De Vega wagged a hand back and forth. " 'Tis I should thank you, seA±or. Again, you prove yourself the poet Don Diego knew you to be."

Will Kemp sidled up to them. "What business have you put in for a clown?" he asked in a squeaky whine.

"It is a play on the death of a great king," Lope said coldly; he did not like Kemp.

"All the more reason for japes and jests," the clown said.

"You are mistaken," de Vega said, more coldly still.

To his surprise, Shakespeare stirred beside him. "No, Lieutenant, haply not," he said, and Lope felt betrayed. Shakespeare went on, "Sweeten the posset with some honey, and down it goes, and sinks deep. Without the same. " He shook his head.

"I have trouble believing this," Lope said.

"Then who's the fool?" Will Kemp said. He went on, " A was the first that ever bore arms.' " A sudden shift of voice for, " a€?Why, he had none.' " Back to the original: " What? art a heathen? How dost thou understand the Scripture? The Scripture says, Adam digged; could he dig without arms? I'll put another question to thee. If thou answerest me not, confess thyself-' "

"Confess thyself a blockhead," Lope broke in. "What is this nonsense?"

Quietly, Shakespeare said, "It is from my Prince of Denmark, sir, the which you were kind enough to praise not long since."

Kemp bent and took Lope's head in both hands. The Spaniard tried to twist away, but could not; the clown was stronger than he looked. Solemnly-and, Lope realized after a moment, doing an excellent imitation of Richard Burbage-Kemp intoned, " a€?Alas, poor Yorick. I knew him.' "-as if Lope's head were the skull of the dead clown in the play. " a€?I knew him, Horatio; a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy. He hath borne me on his back a thousand times; and now, how abhorred in my imagination it is! Here hung those lips that I have kissed I know not how oft.' " He kissed Lope de Vega on the mouth and let him go.

Furious, Lope sprang to his feet. His rapier hissed free. "Whoreson knave! Thou diest!" he roared.

"Hold!" Shakespeare said. "Give over! He made his point with words."

Kemp seemed too stupid to care whether he lived or died. Pointing to Lope, he jeered, "He hath no words, and so needs must make his with the sword." With a mocking bow, he added, "Fear no more kisses. I'm not so salt a rogue that you shall make a Bacon of me."

"All the contagions of the south light on you!" Lope said. But he did not thrust at the hateful clown.

He regretted his restraint a moment later, for Kemp bowed once more, and answered, "Why, here you are."

"Go to, both of you!" Shakespeare said. "Give over! Master de Vega, this once I will pray pardon in the clown's name, for-"

"I want no pardon, not from the likes of him," Kemp broke in, which almost got him spitted yet again.

"Silence! One word more shall make me chide thee, if not hate thee," the English poet told him.

Shakespeare turned back to Lope. "I will pray pardon in's name, sir, for how else but by clowning shall a clown answer?"

Breathing heavily, de Vega sheathed his blade. "For your sake, Master Shakespeare, I will put by my quarrel."

But it was not for Shakespeare's sake, or not altogether, that he took it no further. Shakespeare gave him an honorable excuse, yes, and he seized on it. But Will Kemp- demons of hell torment him, Lope thought-had been right, and had proved himself right, no matter how offensively he'd done it. Lope wouldn't admit that to the clown, but couldn't help admitting it to himself.

"I thank you," Shakespeare said.

"Not I." Kemp minced away, sticking out his backside at every step.

Through clenched teeth, Lope said, "Let the doors be shut upon him, that he may play the fool nowhere but in his own house."

"In sooth, he's wise enough to play the role," Shakespeare answered with a sigh, "and to do that well craves a kind of wit."

"He doth indeed show some sparks that are like wit-but not much like it," de Vega said. "And what passes for his wit likes me not much."

With another sigh, Shakespeare said, "Have you not betimes seen it with players, that differences 'twixt whom they play and who they are smudge even in their own minds?"

"I have." But Lope would not leave it alone. "If this be so with Kemp, send him to. How is the place whither you send distraught and lunatic people called?"

"To Bethlem, within Bishopsgate," Shakespeare replied at once.

"To Bethlem, Gracias, " Lope said. "Let him live there when not upon the stage, and make a spectacle for the general even when he plays not." The English poet only spread his hands, as if to ask, What can you do? And, since Kemp's foibles truly weren't Shakespeare's fault, de Vega spread his hand, too, silently answering, Nothing at all. Aloud, he went on, "I shall take my superior, as I say, a good report of your progress, which will also, I doubt not, shortly reach Don Diego's ear."

"I am glad it pleases you," Shakespeare said. "And, I warrant you, once Master Kemp hath the lines wherewith to work his foolery, he'll make a proper man, as one shall see in a summer's day; a most lovely, gentleman-like man."

"God grant it be so." Lope knew he didn't sound convinced. He bowed. "I go."

When he got back to the Spanish barracks, Enrique wouldn't let him in to see Captain GuzmA?n till he'd recited and translated Shakespeare's lines for Elizabeth and the Duke of Parma. When he'd finished, GuzmA?n's servant kissed his bunched fingertips like a lovesick youth. "Again, Senior Lieutenant, I envy you your fluency in English. If only I spoke better, I would be with you at the Theatre every moment until my principal beat me with sticks to hold me to his service."

Lope believed him. "His Excellency would beat you to get you not to do something," he observed. "With Diego. " He didn't go on. Enrique was clever enough-more than clever enough-to draw his own pictures. "And now that I have sung for the privilege, be so kind as to take me to your principal."

"Of course. If you will do me the favor of accompanying me. "

Baltasar GuzmA?n listened attentively to Lope. When de Vega started to quote the English, though, his superior held up a hand. "Spare me that. I don't know enough of the language to follow. Give me the gist, en espaA±ol."

"Certainly, your Excellency," Lope said, and obeyed.

When he'd finished, Guzman nodded. "This all sounds well enough, Lieutenant. I have one question, though." Lope nodded, too, looking as if he awaited nothing more eagerly. Captain Guzman asked,

"Can you be sure no treason lurks here, that an Englishman would hear but you do not? You have harped on Shakespeare's subtlety before."

The question was better, more serious, more important, than Lope had looked for. "I-" he began, and then shook his head. "No, sir, I cannot be sure of that. I am fluent in English, but not perfect. Still, the Master of the Revels will pass on the play before it appears. I may miss this or that. He will not."

"Yes. That is so." Captain GuzmA?n nodded and looked relieved. "And Sir Edmund is most reliable." He clicked his tongue between his teeth. "I have to make sure he stays reliable, eh?"

" Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? " de Vega remarked

"Just so-who watches the watchmen?" GuzmA?n turned Latin into Spanish. He eyed Lope, who felt a sudden horrible fear the little nobleman might decide he ought to do that job. But Guzman shook his head, reading de Vega's thought. "You'll stay where you are. You're doing well there, and I have no one else who could take your place. So your precious Shakespeare really is writing this play, eh?"

"He really is, your Excellency," Lope answered.

"Good. Very good," Captain Guzman said. "One more English whore-pay him, and he does what you want."

Shakespeare was tired of cheese and stockfish and even of fresh fish. What he wanted was a beefsteak, hot and sizzling and full of juice. When he grumbled to Kate in the ordinary, she leaned toward him and spoke in a low voice. "You can have what you crave, though not for the threepence of a common supper."

"Ah?" He looked around. Only a couple of other men sat in the ordinary, and they were quietly arguing over some business deal. Even so, he answered in a whisper of his own: "Your master hath fitted out a close room for such dealings?"

"So hath he done, upstairs. For a shilling. "

With a laugh, Shakespeare shook his head. "Stockfish it shall be." Did its being forbidden make a threepenny beefsteak suddenly quadruple in worth? Not to him. And you were wise to take no chances on betraying yourself in a small way, lest you discover your larger treason, he thought.

Kate said, "I've heard this is not truly Lent at all, the which'd make the eating of meat at this season no sin."

"I've heard the same," Shakespeare admitted. "But the priests say otherwise, and theirs is the word of weight." He was pleased she thought he refrained from fear of sin as well as because of cost. The more he had to hide, the less he wanted anyone thinking he had anything.

He'd almost finished his unsatisfying Lenten supper when someone who was not a regular strode into the ordinary and looked around. Shakespeare needed a moment to realize that, though he hadn't seen the fellow here before, he knew him even so. The newcomer recognized him at the same moment, and walked over towards his table. "Master Shakespeare, an I mistake not," he said.

"Indeed, Constable Strawberry," Shakespeare answered. "Give you good even."

"And you." The constable perched on a stool. He waved to Kate. "A cup of sherris-sack, and yarely."

As the serving woman brought it, Shakespeare thanked heaven he hadn't brought Boudicca to the ordinary-although, he reminded himself uneasily, Walter Strawberry could also have come to the house where he lodged. Fighting that unease, he said, "What would you?"

"I'm turning up clods, you might say," Strawberry replied gravely. He nodded, pleased with his own turn of phrase. "Aye, I'm turning up clods."

See yourself in a glass, and you'll turn up a great one. The thought flickered through Shakespeare's mind. He bit back the urge to fling it in Strawberry's face. Will Kemp wouldn't have hesitated, but Kemp had less to lose. Wearing his polite player's mask, Shakespeare asked, "And what have you turned up?"

"Somewhat of this, somewhat of that," Strawberry answered. "For ensample, that you and the expired prompter, to wit one Geoffrey Martin, were prompt to quarrel not long before the time of his untimely demise. Forgive me for speaking prose, but there you have it."

"I have worked with Master Martin since coming to London and joining Lord Westmorland's Men."

Shakespeare did his best to sound annoyed and not frightened. "We always quarrel when first I give him a play. Learned you that in your questioning?"

Constable Strawberry solemnly nodded. "I did, sir. Indeed I did. And what's the whyfore behind it?"

"That he would change what I would were left unchanged," Shakespeare answered. "Every man who shapes a play will quarrel thus with a company's prompter. Learned you that in your questioning?"

"I did, sir," Strawberry repeated.

"Then why"-Shakespeare almost said whyfore himself-"come you here?"

"Fear not, Master Shakespeare. I draw nearer the occasion of my occasion, so I do." The constable took a scrap of paper from his wallet, peered down at it, and then put it back. "D'you ken a man named Frizer?"

"Frizer?" the poet echoed. Strawberry nodded. Shakespeare shook his head and shrugged. "No, sir.

That name I wot not of."

"Ingram Frizer, he calls himself," Strawberry went on.

Ice ran through Shakespeare. He hoped his surprise and dismay didn't show. That loud-mouthed knifeman who'd asked if Geoff Martin was causing trouble. The poet made himself shrug again. "I am none the wiser, sir."

"Ah, well. I've said the same thing, the very same thing, many a time, so I have." The constable held up his mug and called to Kate: "Here, my dear, fetch me another, if you'd be so genderous."

"So can she scarce help being," Shakespeare remarked.

"Ah, in sooth? That likes me in a woman, genderosity, so it does. I thank you for learning me of it."

Strawberry laid a finger by the side of his nose and winked. When the serving woman refilled his mug, he patted her backside.

She poured wine in his lap. He let out a startled squawk. "Oh, your pardon, I pray you," Kate said sweetly, and went back behind the counter.

Strawberry fumed. "Methought you said she was genderous of her person," he grumbled, dabbing at himself. "I saw no hint of that-marry, none." He sipped what was left of the wine, his expression still sour.

"A misunderstanding, belike," Shakespeare said.

"Ay, truly, for I understood the miss to be of her person. " The constable took another pull at the mug, set it down, and looked at Shakespeare as if just realizing he was there. "Ingram Frizer," he said again.

"I told you, sir, I know not the man."

"You told me. Oh, yes, you told me." Constable Strawberry nodded and then kept on nodding, as if he ran on clockwork. "But you ken a man who knows the aforespoken Frizer."

"Not to my knowledge," Shakespeare said.

"Ah, knowledge." Strawberry was still nodding, perhaps wisely. "I know all manner of things I have no knowledge of. But I say what I say, the which being so in dispect of the man."

" What man?" Shakespeare demanded, hoping a show of temper would mask his growing fear. "I pray you, tell me who it is quickly and speak apace. One more inch of delay is a South Sea of discovery.

Take the cork out of your mouth that I may drink your tidings. Pour this concealed man out of your mouth as wine comes out of a bottle."

"As you like it, sir, I shall. His name is Nick Skeres. Will you tell me you ken him not? Eh? Will you?"

Shakespeare would have liked to, but dared not. Too many people had seen him with Skeres, and might give him the lie. "Yes, we've met," he admitted. "We are not friends, he and I, but we've met."

"Not friends, is it?" Walter Strawberry leaned forward, using his bulk to intimidate. "Be ye foes, then?

Say you so?"

"No," Shakespeare answered. "I say we are not friends. I ken the man not well enough to call him friend-nor he me, I'd venture."

"I see." Strawberry gave no sign as to whether he believed what the poet told him. "Know you where this Nick Skeres' locution is to be located?"

"Where he dwells, mean you?"

"Said I not that very thing?"

"I dare say. Your pardon, Constable, but I know not. As I told you, we are but acquaintances, not friends."

He waited tensely for the next question Strawberry would send his way. The constable was not bright, but he was diligent. He might-he plainly did-need longer than a more clever man would have to find his answers, but he had a chance of finding them in the end. Not tonight, though. Finishing his wine, he got to his feet. "I thank you for passing the time of day with me, Master Shakespeare, I do. Haply 'twill prove in your regard much ado about nothing. I hope it may so. Give you good den." He lumbered out of the ordinary.

"Who was that man?" Kate asked after Strawberry closed the door behind him. "Tell me he is your friend, and you shall no more be mine."

"God save me, no!" Shakespeare exclaimed. "He is a constable from Shoreditch, inquiring after the death of poor Geoff Martin, of which I believe I have spoke somewhat."

"A constable? I might have known," Kate said darkly. "With the help of a surgeon he might yet recover, and prove himself an ass."

"At bottom, he is nothing else-but an officious ass, mind."

"I would have more to say of him than that. but let it go, let it go. Put his hands on me, would he?

Marry, I'd best bathe, to wash the taint away. A constable!" She muttered something else, which Shakespeare, perhaps fortunately, could not make out.

He had intended going back to his lodging and working on Boudicca there. He'd just sat down in front of the fire, though, when Cicely Sellis came out of her room with a swarthy fellow who lifted his hat to her, said, " Muchas gracias," and then vanished into the night.

As casually as he could, Shakespeare said, "That was a Spaniard." He hoped his words covered the pounding of his heart.

The cunning woman nodded. "He is. friend to a woman who hath oft come hither, and so thought to ask of me a question of his own."

"I hope he paid well," Shakespeare said.

Cicely Sellis nodded again, and smiled. "He did indeed. The dons are fools with their money, nothing less. Whether I gave him full. satisfaction I know not, though I dare hope."

"Ah." Shakespeare had been about to ask what the Spaniard had wanted, and had been afraid she wouldn't tell him. Now he thought he knew, especially as the fellow was well into his middle years. "He hath a difficulty in rising to the occasion?"

"E'en so." Amusement glinted in Cicely Sellis' eye.

"And have you a physic for the infirmity in's firmity?" Shakespeare coughed. "I do but inquire from curiosity, mind."

"Certes." That amused glint got brighter. "How shall I say't? Often-times, if a man believe I have this physic, why then I do."

Shakespeare found himself amused, too. "Strong reasons make strong actions, then?" he asked.

"Betimes they do, Master Shakespeare," the cunning woman said. "Ay, betimes they do. Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie."

"A truth. Without doubt, a truth. Would more knew it."

Now Cicely Sellis shook her head. "Nay, say not so. Were it other than a secret close kept, who would visit cunning women? Do you publish it, and I starve." She clasped her hands together in mock distress.

"No." Shakespeare laughed out loud as he too shook his head.

"How not? How could it be otherwise?"

"How? I'll tell you straight. What's the common curse of mankind? Folly and ignorance. To wisdom man's a fool that will not yield. I do now mind me of a saying, a€?The fool doth think he is wise'-and you may as well forbid the sea for to obey the moon, as or by oath remove or counsel shake the fabric of man's folly. That is truth, or there be liars."

"You think not much of them God made."

"I think God made them-fools," Shakespeare said. "Or will you quarrel?"

"Not I," Cicely Sellis said. "Never let it be said I could do such an unchristian thing as that. And I'll leave you to your work now, good sir, lest you find reason to quarrel with me." She dropped him a curtsy that might have come from a noblewoman-not that he'd ever had a noblewoman drop him a curtsy-and drew back into her room. "God give you good even," she said, closing the door behind her.

"And you," Shakespeare answered, though he wasn't sure she heard. He perched on the stool in front of the table, then nervously got up and put more wood on the fire. The Widow Kendall would complain in the morning when she found it gone, but she wasn't here now, and Shakespeare needed the light. He also needed to take a deep breath and calm himself before setting pen to paper on Boudicca. First Constable Strawberry, then that whoreson Spaniard. 'Swounds, an I die not of an apoplexy, 'twill be the hand of God on my shoulder, holding me safe from harm.

It was, perhaps, not by accident that his mind and his pen turned to the revolt Britain, under the queen of the Iceni, raised against the Romans, and to the Romans' horrified response. How would they feel, seeing a province they thought subdued rise and smite 'em? he wondered.

His pen began to move. Poenius Postumus, a Roman officer, began to speak on the page:

"Nor can Rome task us with impossibilities,

Or bid us fight against a flood; we serve her,

That she may proudly say she hath good soldiers,

Not slaves to choke all hazards. Who but fools,

That make no difference betwixt certain dying

And dying well, would fling their fames and fortunes

Into this Britain-gulf, this quicksand-ruin,

That, sinking, swallows us! what noble hand

Can find a subject fit for blood there? or what sword

Room for his execution? what air to cool us,

But poison'd with their blasting breaths and curses,

Where we lie buried quick above the ground,

And are, with labouring sweat and breathless pain,

Kill'd like slaves, and cannot kill again?"

Shakespeare paused to read what he'd just written, and nodded in satisfaction. He started to add something to Poenius' speech, but his pen chose that moment to run dry. Muttering, hoping he wouldn't lose his inspiration, he inked it and resumed:

"Set me to lead a handful of my men

Against an hundred thousand barbarous slaves,

That have march'd name by name with Rome's best doers?

Serve 'em up some other meat; I'll bring no food

To stop the jaws of all those hungry wolves;

My regiment's mine own."

He nodded again. Yes, that would do nicely. Poenius would later kill himself for shame at not having joined Suetonius' victorious army. Meanwhile, his anguished despair would move the play forward-and make the groundlings cheer his British, female foe.

After the Romans first conquered Britain, Tacitus said, they'd flogged Boudicca and violated her daughters. Rumor said the Spaniards had raped England's Virgin Queen after capturing her. Shakespeare didn't know whether rumor was true, but he intended to use it in the play.

But not tonight, he thought, yawning. He began to rest his head on his arms, then jerked upright with alarm tingling through him. If he fell asleep in front of the hearth and someone else got a look at what he was writing. If that happened, he was a dead man, and Lord Burghley's plan dead with him. He made himself get up and put away the deadly dangerous manuscript before he went to bed. His last thought as slumber seized him was, I may not make this business easier, but I will not make it harder.

When Lope De Vega walked into his chamber, he expected to find Diego asleep. He wouldn't even have been angry if he had; it couldn't have been far from midnight. The dice had rolled Lope's way, and he'd stayed in the game longer than he'd expected. Gambling during Lent was probably a sin. Whether it was or not, it was certainly profitable.

A lamp burned in the outer room where Diego dwelt. The servant wasn't even in bed, but sitting on a stool. Lope grinned at him. "If you sleep all day, will you stay awake all night? Why aren't you.?"

He'd intended to say snoring, but his voice trailed away. He stared at Diego in astonished dismay. His servant stared back, more appalled still. Diego had just cut a bite from a big chunk of roast beef, and now stopped with that bite halfway to his mouth. The dim, flickering lamplight was more than enough to show how pale he went.

"Madre de Dios," Lope whispered. "Diego, you idiot, have you turned Protestant now?"

Diego's fleshy jowls wobbled as he shook his head. "Protestant? God save me, no, sir!"

"How is God supposed to save you if you eat meat during Lent? Don't you know we're hunting Englishmen who do the very same thing? Are you out of your mind?"

"No, sir. I'm just hungry," his servant answered. "Bread and cheese, bread and cheese. To the Devil with bread and cheese!"

"No, no, no." Now de Vega was the one who shook his head. "To the Devil with eating meat at this season of the year. Or, I should say, the idea of eating meat at this season of the year has come straight from Satan."

"No such thing, sir," Diego said indignantly. "No such thing. I got hungry, that's all. It's nothing else."

"Nothing, eh? Suppose I call Captain Guzman? Suppose I call a priest? Suppose I call a priest from the Spanish Inquisition, or the English? Will they think it's nothing? Would you have turned the color of whey if you thought it was nothing?"

Diego shot him a resentful stare. "What are you doing here, anyway? When you didn't come back and you didn't come back, I thought you were off screwing your new Englishwoman. If you hadn't walked in when you weren't supposed to, you never would have seen me."

"And you still would have sinned," Lope said.

"And so what?" his servant replied. "God would have known, and maybe my confessor, but nobody else.

I'm not doing any harm."

Lope pointed to the chunk of beef. "Get rid of that. Wrap a rag around it so nobody can see what it is and get rid of it. You didn't think anyone would catch you, but now somebody has. And do you know what that means? Do you, Diego?"

"What?" Diego asked apprehensively.

"It means you are mine," de Vega answered. "Mine, do you hear me? I hold your life in my hand, and if I choose to squeeze. " He held out his right hand, palm up, and slowly folded it into a fist. He made the fist as tight as he could, to make sure Diego got the idea.

His servant shuddered. "You wouldn't do such a thing, senor. would you?"

That last frightened question, one Diego surely didn't want to ask but also one he couldn't hold back, told Lope just how worried he was. "Maybe I wouldn't," Lope said. "But, on the other hand, maybe I would, too. That depends on you, don't you think?"

"On me?" Diego didn't like the sound of that.

"On you," Lope said again. "Maybe you were just hungry this once, as you say. If you were, maybe we can forget about it. If you keep your nose clean from now on-if you stay awake, by God, and if you do all the things you're supposed to do-then nobody needs to know about it. But if you think you can go on being lazy and useless, well, even if I can't wake you up, I'd bet the inquisitors damned well can."

Diego looked sullen. "That's blackmail."

"Yes, it is, isn't it?" de Vega agreed cheerfully. "A shame I need to blackmail you into doing what you ought to be doing anyhow, but if that's what it takes, that's what I'll do. You will stay awake from now on, won't you?"

" Si, senor," Diego said, sounding more sullen still.

He sounded sullen enough, in fact, to make Lope wonder whether he might prove dangerous. Best to forestall that, Lope judged. "Don't even think about poisoning me or knocking out my brains while I'm asleep," he warned. "I'm going to write down just what I've seen, and I'm going to seal the letter and give it to someone I trust. If anything happens to me, you know what will happen to you, don't you?"

" Si-, senor," his servant repeated, his voice gloomy.

Lope smiled. "Very good. Now, while I'm writing suppose you take that roast beef away. Then come back and go to bed. You won't mind doing that, will you?"

"No, sir." Diego heaved an enormous sigh. He wrapped the offending meat in a rag, as de Vega had suggested, and carried it out. Lope went into his own chamber, using the lamp in the anteroom to light the one inside. Because he worked on plays in odd moments, he always had paper and pens and ink handy.

He sat down on the stool and started to write.

Diego came back very quietly. As if by magic, the pen vanished from de Vega's hand and his rapier replaced it. "You don't want to try anything foolish, do you, Diego?" he said softly.

" No, senor." The servant didn't even bother pretending he hadn't been thinking about it. "I guess I don't. Good night."

"Good night," Lope said. "When I finish what I'm working on here, I'm going to take off my boots and leave them out there for you to black. I'll expect them to be ready when I get up in the morning. You'll do a good job, won't you?"

"I'll take care of them, yes." Diego sounded like a man utterly without hope. Lope used the rapier to wave him out of the room. Once his man was gone, Lope did finish the letter- better safe went through his mind. He sealed the letter then got out of his boots and put them in the anteroom. When he went back into his bedchamber, he barred the door from the inside. As soon as the letter was in someone else's hands, he'd be reasonably safe. Till then- better safe, he told himself again.

Out beyond the barred door, Diego cursed quietly. His blasphemies were music to Lope's ears. Then Diego picked up the boots; their heels thumped together. Lope hugged himself with glee as he got into bed. Not even the threat of the Scottish border had turned Diego into a tolerable servant. The threat of the Inquisition, though, seemed to have turned the trick.

And when Lope woke the next morning, he found Diego already up and waiting for him. "Here are your boots, seA±or," the servant said tonelessly. All the mud and scuff marks were gone from them; the leather gleamed with grease. Still with no expression in his voice, Diego went on, "What else do you require?"

"Do I hear rain outside?" Lope asked. Diego nodded. De Vega said, "Well, in that case, you can fetch me my good wool cloak, and get me a hat with an extra wide brim."

"Just as you say," Diego answered, and went to do it. He didn't grumble. He didn't even yawn. It was like a miracle. Lope had no idea how long it would last, but aimed to enjoy it while it did. Taking the letter he'd written with him, he went off to get his breakfast. Even the porridge the barracks kitchen served up tasted better than usual this morning.

With a bowl of barley mush and a cup of wine inside him, he went to see his superior. As usual, Captain Baltasar GuzmA?n's servant intercepted him before he got through the door. "You're looking cheerful this morning, Senior Lieutenant," Enrique remarked.

"I feel cheerful," de Vega replied.

"Shakespeare's play goes well?"

"Yes, I think so," Lope said. If Enrique wanted to think that was why he felt happy, the servant was welcome to do so. De Vega added, "As a matter of fact, I'm going up to the Theatre as soon as I see Captain GuzmA?n. Is his Excellency in?"

" Un momento, por favor." Enrique ducked behind the door, as if to see whether Guzman was there, though he had to know perfectly well. But he was smiling when he came out again. "He says he is delighted to see you. Go right in."

" Gracias." De Vega walked past Enrique and made a leg at Captain Guzman, who nodded in return from behind his desk. "I trust your Excellency is well?" Lope said.

"I'll do," Guzman said dryly. As Enrique had, he went on, "You look pleased with yourself today, Senior Lieutenant."

"And so I am, sir." Lope handed him the letter he'd written. "Would you do me the courtesy of holding this unread unless some misfortune befalls me?"

Captain GuzmA?n raised an eyebrow as he took the sealed sheet of paper. "Just as you say, of course.

May I ask whether it has to do with your theatrical connections or with your women?"

"With neither," de Vega answered, and had the satisfaction of watching that eyebrow jump in surprise again. But GuzmA?n stowed the letter in his desk without another word. Lope bowed. "Many thanks, your Excellency. And now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off for Shoreditch."

"How alarmingly diligent," GuzmA?n murmured. He might almost have been Lope himself, talking to Diego. That comparison, perhaps fortunately, didn't occur to Lope till he'd got a horse from the stables and ridden out through Bishopsgate. When it did, the rain-a steady downpour-muffled his bad language so that only the couple of Englishmen closest to him turned their heads his way.

Lope squelched through the mud around the Theatre. The space within the wooden O where the groundlings would stand was muddy, too. On stage, actors rehearsed under the protection of a painted canvas canopy-the heavens, they called it. "Where is Master Shakespeare?" Lope called in English to Richard Burbage. "I see him not."

The big player's broad shoulders went up and down in a shrug. "He should have come hither," Burbage answered. "He should have, but he did not do't. I know not where he is myself, Master de Vega, and wish to heaven 'twere otherwise."

"Keep dry, now," the Widow Kendall called out as William Shakespeare left her house to go to the Theatre. With rain drumming down, the advice struck him as useless, but was no doubt kindly meant. He nodded and hurried away.

His belly growled as he hurried through Bishopsgate. Lent wore on him. But he dared not break the fast, not in this year of all years. He was much more virtuous than he might have been, to make sure the Spaniards paid him no special notice.

"Master Shakespeare?"

The voice came out of the rain. Shakespeare jumped. "Who is it?" he asked sharply, peering through the dripping early-morning gloom.

"Here I am, your honor."

Shakespeare's heart sank. He'd heard that sly, whining voice before, seen that clever, ugly face. "What would you, Master Skeres?" he said. "Let it be brief, an you can. I must to the Theatre."

Nicholas Skeres shook his head. "I fear me not, or not yet. You needs must come with me, and straightaway."

"Wherefore?" Shakespeare demanded.

Skeres' smile showed his bad teeth. It also made Shakespeare want to drive them down his throat. "The wherefore of't's not for me to say," Skeres answered. "Still and all, them as sent me, they'd not be happy did I come back to 'em solus."

"And who did send you?"

"Them you'll meet when I fetch you thither." From everything Shakespeare had seen, Nick Skeres delighted in being uninformative. He also delighted in the power he held over Shakespeare. When he said, "Come," the snap of command filled his voice.

And Shakespeare had to go with him. He knew as much. He hated it, but he knew it. He did say, "They'll miss me, up in Shoreditch."

Nick Skeres shrugged. "Better that than they miss you whose man I am." He turned away towards the southwest. Heart sinking, Shakespeare followed, however much he wanted to go in the opposite direction.

A horse trying to haul a wagon full of barrels through the muck blocked a narrow street. The wagon had bogged down. The driver rained blows on the horse's back. With all its strength, the beast strained against the weight and the mud. Then, with a noise like a pistol shot, it broke a leg. Its scream was like that of a woman on the rack.

"Cut its throat," Skeres said with a laugh. "It's knacker's meat now."

So it is, Shakespeare thought grimly. And you'd cut my throat as heartlessly, you bloody, bawdy villain, did I likewise break down in your employ. Nick Skeres laughed again, as if to say he knew what was going through Shakespeare's mind-knew and didn't care. And that was all too likely true.

"We've not far to go," Skeres said after a while.

"What? Hereabouts?" Shakespeare pointed. "There's the London Stone, the which signifies the Spaniards' barracks cannot lie a stone's throw distant. Beard we the dons in their den?"

Skeres laughed again, which did nothing to reassure Shakespeare. "They think the same: that none'd be so fond as to plot under their very noses." Even as he spoke, a squad of unhappy-looking Spaniards tramped past on patrol. One man glanced towards the two Englishmen and kept walking. The rest paid them no attention at all.

"Madness," Shakespeare muttered. Nick Skeres grinned at the Spanish soldiers, who disappeared round a corner one after another. Reluctantly-most reluctantly-Shakespeare nodded. "Though this be madness, yet there is method in't."

"E'en so," Skeres said. "Here. Come you with me. This is the house we seek."

The building in question was large and well made. "Whose it it?" Shakespeare asked.

"It belongs to Sir John Hart, the alderman," Skeres answered. "But that's nor here nor there."

Instead of going to the door and knocking, as he had at the Bacons' house in Drury Lane a few months before, he led Shakespeare to a side gate that opened onto an enclosed garden: one surely splendid in spring and summer, but sad now, with scarcely any green to be seen. "Who'd meet us here?"

Shakespeare said, pulling his hat down lower to keep his face dry.

"Why, the men who're fain to see you. Who else?" Nick Skeres replied. Shakespeare glared. The other man looked back, unperturbed and resolutely close-mouthed. He took Shakespeare towards a rose arbor that no doubt perfumed the air and gave welcome shade when the sun shone high and hot, but that seemed as badly out of season as the rest of the garden now. As Shakespeare drew closer to it, he saw through the rain that two men sat in that poor shelter-waiting for him?

" 'Sblood, Master Skeres, they'll take their deaths," he exclaimed.

Shrugging, Skeres answered, "An they fret not, why should you?" He sounded altogether indifferent. The milk of human kindness ran thin in him, if it ran at all.

When Shakespeare ducked his way into the arbor, both waiting men slowly got to their feet. "God give you good morrow," Sir William Cecil rumbled.

Shakespeare bowed low. "And you, your Grace," he said. "But. should you not go inside, where.

where it's warm and dry?" Where I may hope you'll die not on the instant, was what he meant. Lord Burghley was paler and puffier than he had been the previous autumn; he wheezed with every breath he took, and shivered despite being swaddled in furs.

But he shook his head even so. "Who knows what ears lurk within? As the matter advanceth, so advanceth also the need to keep't secret. And here, in sooth, we speak under the rose." He chuckled rheumily. Despite the laugh and his bold words, though, his lips had a bluish cast that alarmed Shakespeare. He gathered strength and went on, "When last we met, I told you my son would take this matter forward. Allow me to present you to him now. Robert, here is Master Shakespeare, the poet."

"I am your servant, sir," Shakespeare murmured, bowing to the younger man as he had to the elder.

Robert Cecil gave back a bow of his own. He was about Shakespeare's age, with a long, thin, pale face made longer still by the pointed chin beard he wore and by his combing his seal-brown hair back from his forehead. He would not have been a tall man even had he stood straight; a crooked back robbed him of several more inches. But when he said, "I take no small pleasure at making your acquaintance, Master Shakespeare, being an admirer of your dramas," Shakespeare bowed again, knowing he'd got praise worth having. The younger Cecil's voice was higher and lighter than his father's, but no less full of sharp, even prickly, intelligence.

Sir William Cecil sank back to the bench from which he'd risen. To Shakespeare's relief, his color improved slightly when he sat down. Switching to Latin, he asked, "How fares your play upon the rebellion of Boudicca?"

"I hope to finish it before spring ends," Shakespeare replied in the same language. "I am certain sure, my lord, you will already know I am also ordered to write a play upon the life of King Philip."

"Yes, I do know that." Lord Burghley nodded. "I also know the Spaniards are paying you more than I gave you at our last meeting. Robert, be so good as to make amends for that."

"Certes, Father." Robert Cecil reached under his cloak. His hands were long and thin and pale, too-hands a musician might have wished he had. He gave Shakespeare a small but nicely heavy leather sack. "We cannot let ourselves be outbid."

"By God, sir-" Shakespeare began, alarmed back into English.

The younger Cecil waved him to silence. "Did we fear betrayal from you, we'd work with another. This is for our pride's sake, not suffering our foes to outdo us."

"Gramercy." Shakespeare bowed once more.

"Your thanks are welcome but not needed, for doing this likes us well," Robert Cecil said. His father nodded. Shakespeare did not answer. No doubt the younger Cecil meant what he said. But Shakespeare knew he might have met with Ingram Frizer and his knife had he displeased the two powerful Englishmen.

In aid of which. "Constable Strawberry knows Ingram Frizer's name," the poet warned.

"We know of Constable Strawberry," Lord Burghley said with another wet chuckle. "Fear not on that score."

Robert Cecil nodded. "If he have wit enough to keep himself warm, let him bear it for a difference between himself and his horse."

"His wits are not so blunt as, God help us, I would desire them," Shakespeare said.

"Comparisons are odorous," the younger Cecil observed, proving he had indeed marked Walter Strawberry's style, "but not Hercules could have knocked out his brains, for he had none."

"Belike," Shakespeare said, "yet some of what your wisdoms would not have discovered, that shallow fool hath brought to light."

"He'll find no more," Robert Cecil said. With that Shakespeare had to be content-or rather, less than content.

"Nick!" Sir William Cecil said sharply.

"Your Grace?" Nicholas Skeres replied.

"Go walk the garden, Nick," the old man told him. "Bring back report of its beauties in, oh, a quarter hour's time."

Shakespeare would have resented such a peremptory dismissal. Skeres took it in stride. He dipped his head in what was more than a nod but less than a bow. "Just as you say, my lord," he murmured, and withdrew from the arbor.

Both Cecils stared at Shakespeare, who suddenly felt very much alone. "What-what would ye?" he asked, and felt blood rush to his face in embarrassment at hearing his voice quaver.

Lord Burghley said, "Here's what, Master Shakespeare: I'd fain hear some of your verses. The play advanceth, ay, but my course on earth doth likewise. The horses of the night of which Marlowe writ will not run slow for me. Give me some foretaste, then, of the dish I ordered but shall not eat."

"My lord, may you glut yourself with it," Shakespeare said. Lord Burghley only shrugged and gestured for him to go on. After a moment's thought, he did: "You are to understand, this is Boudicca, urging her stalwarts to war against the Romans."

"Ah, very good." That was Robert Cecil, not his father. "Give it us."

"I shall, as best I recall it," Shakespeare replied. "Here, then: a€?Had we a difference with a petty isle,

Or with our neighbours, good sirs, for our land-marks,

The taking in of some rebellious lord,

Or making a head against commotions,

After a day of blood, peace might be argued;

But where we grapple for the ground we live on,

The liberty we hold as dear as life,

The gods we worship and, next these, our honours,

And with these swords that know no end of battle,

These men, besides themselves, allow no neighbour,

Those minds that where the day is claim inheritance,

And where the sun makes ripe the fruits, their harvest,

And where they march, but measure out more ground

To add to Rome, and here i'the bowels on us;

It must not be. No, as they are our foes,

And those that must be so until we tire 'em,

Let's use the peace of honour, that's fair dealing,

But in the end our swords. That hardy Roman,

That hopes to graft himself into my stock,

Must first begin his kindred underground, and be allied in ashes.' "

He waited. The two Cecils looked at each other. Slowly, magisterially, Lord Burghley nodded. So did his son, who despite his briskness deferred to the old man's opinion. Shakespeare felt as if he'd just received the accolade. Robert Cecil said, " 'Twill serve. Beyond doubt, 'twill serve. Have you more?"

Shakespeare beamed. "By my troth, you know how to please a poet!" William Cecil laughed; Robert allowed himself a thin chuckle. Shakespeare continued, "This is Caratach, Boudicca's brother-in-law and the great warlord of the Iceni-"

"We know our Tacitus, Master Shakespeare," Robert Cecil broke in.

"Your pardon, I pray," Shakespeare said. "The groundlings, however, will not: thus I needs must make it plain."

"Indeed. You know your craft best, and so 'tis I must ask your pardon," the younger Cecil said. "Carry on."

"So I shall. This is Caratach, I say, speaking to Hengo, who is his young nephew, and Boudicca's."

"And who is not in the text of the Annals," William Cecil declared in a voice that brooked no contradiction.

"In sooth, your Grace, he is not," Shakespeare agreed, "but I need him for the play, and so summoned him to being."

The two Cecils put their heads together. Sir William Cecil said, "Again, Master Shakespeare, we take your point. The play's the thing. Let us hear it."

"Gladly. Here is Caratach:

"And, little sir, when your young bones grow stiffer,

And when I see you able in a morning

To beat a dozen boys, and then to breakfast,

I'll tie you to a sword.'

And Hengo replies"-Shakespeare did his best to change his voice to a boyish treble-" a€?And what then, uncle?' " In his usual tones, he spoke for Caratach once more: " Then you must kill, sir, the next valiant Roman that calls you knave.' " Treble for Hengo: " And must I kill but one?' " His own voice for Caratach: " An hundred, boy, I hope.' " He tried to make the treble fierce, for Hengo's reply was,

" I hope, five hundred.' " Through Shakespeare, Caratach said, " That's a noble boy!' "

Lord Burghley raised a hand. Shakespeare obediently fell silent. The old man said, "I chose wisely, to summon you. You make a fine fletcher for the shaft I purpose loosing at the dons. I-" He broke off and began to cough. He had trouble stopping. His face turned red and then began to turn blue. His son leaned towards him, raw fear on his face. William Cecil waved Robert back. At last, he mastered the coughing fit. Slowly-too slowly-his normal color, or rather pallor, returned. He went on, "Belike I'll loose it from beyond the grave, but may it fly no less straight for that."

"Amen, your Grace," Shakespeare said.

Rain dripping from the brim of his hat, Nicholas Skeres returned to the rose arbor. Nodding to Lord Burghley and Robert Cecil in turn, he said, "I'll take him away now." By the way he spoke, Shakespeare might have been a butt of ale.

"Yes, do, Nick." Robert Cecil spoke the same way, which set Shakespeare's teeth on edge. But then the crookback added, "He hath our full favor. Let all your friends know as much."

"I'll do't, sir. You can depend on Nick Skeres." Shakespeare could imagine no one on whom he less wanted to depend. But nobody in this mad game cared a farthing for what he wanted. Skeres turned to him with a half mocking grin. "You may not know't, Master Shakespeare, but I reckon you the safest man in London these days."

"What mean you?" Shakespeare asked.

That grin got wider. "There's not a ferret, not a flick, not a foist, not a high lawyer in the city but knows your name and visage-and knows you're to be let alone. God help him who sets upon you in Lord Burghley's despite."

"And my son's," Sir William Cecil said. "He will outdo me, as any man should pray his son will do."

Shakespeare wondered about that on several counts. He'd known plenty of men, his own father among them, who wanted to see their sons as less than themselves, not greater. More than a few of that type, far from advancing their sons, did everything they could to hold them back. And Robert Cecil, though surely a man of formidable wit, lacked his father's indomitable will. Maybe his slight frame and twisted back accounted for that. Or maybe the younger man would have been the lesser even had he been born straight. In the end, who but God could know such things?

And what is a playwright but a man who seeks to make a god of himself and creatures of his characters? Shakespeare shoved the blasphemous thought aside, though surely it had crossed the mind of everyone who'd ever touched pen to paper in hopes of writing something worth going up on stage.

Enough, he told himself, and bowed to the two Cecils. "My lords, again I say gramercy for the favor you show me."

"We do but give you your deserts," Robert Cecil answered. Shakespeare wondered whether that had an edge to it or he himself was seeing shadows where nothing cast them. He feared he wasn't. If a word from the Cecils-a word delivered through Nick Skeres, and perhaps through Ingram Frizer as well-could ward him against cheats and thieves and pickpockets and highwaymen, what could a different word do? He pleased the Cecils now. If ever he didn't. An I please them not, 'twill be a mayfly's life for me.

Skeres stirred. "We'd best away."

"Go you, gentles." Robert Cecil's smile was strange, bloodless, almost fey. "As for my father and me, why, how can we get hence, when never were we here at all?"

A bit of a ballad lately popular in London ran through Shakespeare's mind: With an host of furious fancies

Whereof I am commander,

With a burning spear, and a horse of air,

To the wilderness I wander.

By a knight of ghosts and shadows

I summoned am to tourney

Ten leagues beyond the wide world's end.

Methinks it is no journey.

As Nick Skeres led him out of Sir John Hart's garden, he slowly nodded. Yes, "Tom o' Bedlam" fit well.

He'd just given the Cecils some small taste of the furious fancies whereof he was commander. And if they both weren't knights of ghosts and shadows, who deserved the name?

Skeres peered over the gate before opening it. "Safe as can be," he said, sounding as if he wanted to reassure himself as much as Shakespeare. "Now go your way, sir, and I'll go mine, and I'll see you again when next there's need. Give you good morrow." Off he went, at a skulking half trot. He quickly disappeared in the rain.

Shakespeare started off towards the Theatre. A squad of Spaniards coming back to their barracks tramped right past him, their boots splashing in unison. Since they wore armor that they would have to grease and polish to hold rust at bay, and that kept trying to pull them down into the mud, they were likely even more miserable than he. None of them looked at him.

He hurried up towards Bishopsgate. Not far from the house where he lodged, a tall, thin, ragged man with a stout staff in his hand and a sword on his hip stepped into the middle of the street, as if to block his path. Heart pounding, Shakespeare boldly strode toward the fellow-who stepped aside to let him pass.

Had the ragged man been a high lawyer who recognized him and let him go? Had the man decided he looked like someone who might put up a fight, and let him go on account of that? Or had he not been a robber at all? Shakespeare realized he would never know. Life offered fewer certainties than the stage.

When Shakespeare got to the Theatre, one of Jack Hungerford's helpers pointed to him and let out a delighted whoop: "God be praised, he's here!"

"In sooth, God be praised!" Richard Burbage boomed from center stage-his usual haunt. "We'd begun to fear you'd gone poor Geoff Martin's way, and the great and wise Constable Strawberry would summon one of us for to identify your moral remainders." Like most players worth their hire, Burbage had a knack for mimicking anyone he chanced to meet. He made no worse hash of the language than the constable himself, though.

"Some of us were less afeard than others," Will Kemp said. Shakespeare wondered-as he was no doubt intended to wonder-how the clown meant that. Had he meant to say some people remained confident nothing had happened to Shakespeare? Or did he mean some people wouldn't have cared had something happened? Better not to know.

"I pray your pardon, friends," Shakespeare said. "I was summoned to see someone, and had no choice but compliance."

He hoped the company would take that to mean he'd been called before Don Diego Flores de ValdA©s.

Kemp, as was his way, drew a different meaning from it. His hands shaped an hourglass in the air.

Several players laughed. So did Shakespeare.

His laughter abruptly curdled when Burbage said, "Your spaniel of a Spaniard came sniffing after you earlier today, and made away in some haste on hearing you'd come not."

"Said he what he wished of me?" Shakespeare asked, cursing under his breath. Lope de Vega, of course, would have no trouble learning he hadn't gone to Don Diego. I did well, not using the lie direct

, Shakespeare thought.

"He'd fain hear moe King Philip, else I'm a Dutchman," Burbage answered, at which Will Kemp began staggering around as if in the last stages of drunkenness and mumbling guttural nonsense that might have been Dutch. Shakespeare laughed again. He couldn't help it. When Kemp let himself go, no man who saw him could help laughing.

He lurched up to Burbage and made as if to piss on his shoes. Burbage sprang back as if he'd really done it-and, had Burbage held still a moment longer, he might have. When he let himself go, he let himself go altogether. He stumbled after Burbage, who said, "Give over, Will."

Kemp spouted more guttural pseudo-Dutch gibberish and gave him a big, wet kiss on the cheek.

Burbage exclaimed in disgust. He shoved Kemp away. The clown looked at him out of eyes suddenly huge and round with grief. "Thou lovest me not!" he wailed, and tears began sliding down his cheeks.

"Madman," Burbage said, half in annoyance, half in affection. Now Kemp bowed like a don. Burbage returned it. Kemp skittered up to him-and kissed him again. "Madman!" Burbage cried again-this time, a full-throated roar of rage.

"Not I." The clown let out a mourning lover's sigh. "With pretty Tom gone, I seek beauty where I find it."

He puckered up once more.

"You'll find my boot in your backside, sure as Tom found Bacon's yard in his," Burbage said. Kemp's sigh wordlessly claimed he wanted nothing more.

Shakespeare asked, "Know you where de Vega went on leaving this place? Will he descend on me with a company of pikemen at his back, fearing me murthered?"

Nobody answered. Shakespeare made as if to tear his hair.

That only got him a scornful snort from Kemp, who said, "Leave clowning to clowns, foolery to fools.

You have not the art of't."

"Wherefore should that hinder me?" Shakespeare replied. "You leave not sense to sensible men."

The players laughed and clapped their hands. Will Kemp's glower, this time, was perfectly genuine. He enjoyed making others the butt of his japes. When he had to play the role, though, it suited him less well.

Before he and Shakespeare could start another round of insults, Richard Burbage asked the poet, "Doth the work thus far done suit the principal?"

Was he speaking of Don Diego or of Lord Burghley, of King Philip or of Boudicca? Shakespeare wasn't sure. He wondered if Burbage were sure. Either way, though, he could safely nod. "So I am given to understand."

"Good, then. Beside that, naught else hath great import." Burbage set his hands on his hips and raised his voice till it filled the Theatre: "Now that Will's back amongst us, and back with good news, let's think on what we do this afternoon, eh? The wives of Windsor shall not be merry unless we make them so."

Kemp fell to with more spirit than he often showed at rehearsals-but then, of course, he played Sir John Falstaff, around whom the comedy revolved. Even though the play ended with Falstaff's humiliation, the part was too juicy to leave him room for complaint. Indeed, after the rehearsal ended, he came up to Shakespeare and said, "Would you'd writ more for the great larded tun." He put both hands on his belly.

He was not a thin man, but would play Falstaff well padded.

"More? Of what sort?" Shakespeare asked. He knew Kemp spoke because he wanted the role, but was curious even so. The clown might give him an idea worth setting down on paper.

But Kemp said, "He is too straitened in a town of no account. Let him come to London! Let him meet with princes. No, by God-he deserveth to meet with kings!"

Shakespeare shook his head. "I fear me not. I got leave to write of the third Richard, he being villain black. But, did I bring other Kings of England into my plays, and in especial did I speak them fair,

'twould be reckoned treason, no less than the. other matter we pursue. Can you tell me I am mistook?"

Will Kemp scowled. "Damn me, but I cannot. Devil take the dons, then! A bargain, Master Shakespeare-do we cast them down, give me Falstaff and a king."

If he had a reason to throw off the Spaniards' yoke, he would be less likely to go to them in a fit of temper or simply a fit of folly. "A bargain," Shakespeare said solemnly. They clasped hands.

Lope De Vega and Lucy Watkins stood among the other groundlings at the Theatre. The boy playing Mistress Page said,

"Good husband, let us every one go home,

And laugh this sport o'er by a country fire;

Sir John and all."

Richard Burbage, who played Ford, replied,

"Let it be so. Sir John,

To Master Brook you shall hold your word;

For he to-night shall lie with Mistress Ford."

A flourish of horns announced the end of the play. The actors bowed. Despite the rain that had been coming down all day, the Theatre erupted in applause. Lope clapped his hands. Beside him, Lucy hopped up and down in the mud, squealing with delight. De Vega smiled. "I am glade it pleases thee," he said. He had to repeat himself to make her hear him through the din.

She nodded, her eyes shining. "Ay, it likes me well. My thanks for bringing me hither."

" El gusto es mio," Lope replied. And the pleasure was his; through the way The Merry Wives of Windsor enchanted her, he enjoyed it as he couldn't have if he'd come alone. The whelk-seller didn't try to pick it to pieces to see how it worked. She just let it wash over her, taking it as it came. Lope couldn't do that by himself. With her, he could.

William Shakespeare came out on stage. "Behold the poet!" Will Kemp shouted. The applause got louder still. Shakespeare bowed. Lucy Watkins whooped and blew him kisses. She wasn't the only one in the crowd sending them to him or to one or another of the players. After another bow, Shakespeare withdrew. The rest of the company followed him, one or two at a time.

"Art fain to meet them?" Lope asked.

She stared at him. " Could I?" she said, as if expecting him to tell her no.

He bowed. " 'Twould be my pleasure," he said. "Pleasing thee is my pleasure." Lucy leaned forward to peck him on the cheek. A man who smelled of onions standing behind them whooped and rocked his hips forward and back. Lope ignored the churl. He took Lucy's hand and led her towards the wings, towards one of the doors that opened onto the backstage tiring room. A delight of falling in love, as he'd said, was that which he took in making her happy.

Some small part of him knew that one day before too long he would spy another face, another form, that pleased him as much as Lucy's, or more. He would fall in love with the woman who had them, too.

Maybe he would lose his love for the whelk-seller, maybe he wouldn't. He had no trouble staying in love with two or three women at once-till they found out about it. Then he had trouble. He tried to forget what had happened after the bear-baiting in Southwark.

Lucy helped by distracting him. "Look! A man guards the way. Will he give us leave to go forward?"

"Fear not, my sweet," Lope answered grandly. The tireman's helper had just turned a prosperous-looking merchant away from the door. De Vega pushed past the disgruntled Englishman, an anxious Lucy on his arm. "Good day to you, Edward," he said.

"Ah, Master Lope." The tireman's helper stood aside. "Go in, sir. I know they'll be glad to see you."

The look on Lucy Watkins' face was worth twenty pounds to him. "They'll be glad to see thee?" she whispered in what couldn't have been anything but awe.

"Certes," Lope said, and patted her hand. "They are my friends." Her eyes got wider still. He wanted to take her in his arms and kiss her on the spot, but didn't for fear of embarrassing her. She wasn't, and didn't act like, a trull, a woman of the town; if she gave herself to him when they were alone together, she behaved like a lady when in public.

"God give you good morrow, Master Lope," Richard Burbage called when de Vega and Lucy came into the tiring room. Lope bowed in return. Lucy's curtsy came a heartbeat slower than it might have, but was graceful as a duchess'. As if she were a noblewoman, Burbage made a leg at her.

"They are thy friends," she said in wonder, pressing closer to Lope.

"I'd never lie to thee, sweetheart," he answered, and knew he was lying.

Will Kemp had got out of the padded costume he'd worn as Falstaff. The water he'd used to wash paint and powder from his face still dripped from his beard. He was puffing on a pipe of tobacco. "Here," he said with an inviting smile, holding it out to Lope. Smoke eddied from his mouth and nose as he spoke.

" Gracias." Lope puffed, too, blew out his own stream of smoke, and handed the clay pipe to Lucy.

"I've not done this before," she said doubtfully. Kemp snorted. Lope shot him a warning glance. For a wonder, he heeded it. Lucy raised the pipe to her lips. She sucked in smoke-and then coughed and choked and almost dropped the pipe. She made a horrible face. "What vile stuff! How can anyone take pleasure in't?"

Lope retrieved the pipe and gave it back to Kemp. "We have no trouble," he said. The clown nodded.

Lucy only looked more disgusted. Will Kemp laughed. For once, he and Lope agreed completely.

Before that agreement could shatter, as it was likely to do, de Vega led Lucy away from the clown and over to Shakespeare. She curtsied to the English poet. He bowed over her hand, saying, "I am pleased to make your acquaintance, my lady."

"And I yours, sir," she said. "The play today-'twas a marvel. I all but split my sides laughing. When Falstaff hid amongst the washing-" She giggled.

Shakespeare raised an eyebrow, ever so slightly. "That it like you delights me," he said. Without words, his face said something else to Lope, something like, You didn't choose her for her wit, did you?

"Her pleasure becomes mine," Lope murmured. Lucy, still gushing about The Merry Wives of Windsor, didn't notice. Shakespeare gave back a thoughtful nod, part understanding; part, Lope thought, something else. Here is a quirk worth remembering for a play, was likely going through the English poet's mind.

"Hark you now, Master Lope," Shakespeare said. "Here's Don Juan de IdiA?quez, King Philip's secretary-whose role, I hope, you'll essay-speaking to his royal master: a€?Is the sun dimm'd, that gnats do fly in it?

The eagle suffers little birds to sing,

And is not careful what they mean thereby,

Knowing that with the shadow of his wings

He can at pleasure stint their melody;

Even so may you the circle of the world.' "

Lope tasted the lines, then slowly nodded. "An honor to play so great a man. An honor to have such splendid words to say." Shakespeare nodded thanks for the compliment.

Lucy Watkins' eyes widened. "Thou'lt tread upon the stage, with Master Shakespeare here writing thee a part?"

"Even so, my beloved," Lope answered. Some women, especially those of higher blood, would have looked down their noses at him for it. To one who sold shellfish, though, the glamour of the theatre seemed perfectly real. Lope knew how tawdry a place it could be. In Lucy's eyes, it shone-and so, through her, it shone again for him, too, at least for a little while.

When he and Lucy left the Theatre a little later, they found the closest lodging they could. He never quite figured out whose arms first went around whom. Lucy had been less lively in bed than some women he'd known. No more. Up till then, he hadn't learned all that went into igniting her. He laughed at the moment they spent themselves together, something he'd hardly ever done despite all his many partners. The theatre had more enchantments than even he'd thought.