Ruled Britannia

by Harry Turtledove

  Most days, he is before me, and, having somewhat to do betwixt close of Theatre and my coming hither, I know I am later than I might be."

  "Later than you ought to be," the Widow Kendall said in reproving tones. "And as for Master Peter-"

  Before she could go on, Jack Street broke in: "He's in the Hole. They nabbed him at last. I wouldn't guess what his law was, but outside the law, certes."

  Shakespeare didn't know what his missing roommate's illegal specialty was, either, but wasn't surprised to learn those in authority thought Peter Foster had one. "Can we do aught for him?" he asked.

  Jack Street gloomily shook his head. "Not unless we want them bastards asking after us next," the glazier said, which struck Shakespeare as altogether too likely.

  "He's paid till the end of the month," Widow Kendall said. "An he bide yet in gaol then, I'll sell his goods for what they bring." She thought more of what she might do for herself than for her lodger.

  After warming himself by the fire, Shakespeare went off to the ordinary around the corner for supper. A sizzling beefsteak and half a loaf to sop up the juices made him a happy man. He took out his quill and his bottle of ink and set to work on Love's Labour's Won. "By God, Master Will, what is it like, to have so many words in your head?" the serving woman asked.

  "So that they come forth, Kate, all's well," he answered. "But if my thoughts be dammed, then I'm damned with them." He pounded his forehead with the heel of his hand to try to show her the feeling he got when the words would not move from his mind to the page in front of him.

  She laughed and nodded and said, "Will another mug of beer loose the flow?"

  "One other may," he said, and she poured his mug full from the pitcher she carried. He went on, "Ask me not again, I pray you, for with too much drink I've trouble knowing whether the words that come be worth the having."

  "I'll leave you to't, then," Kate said, and she did.

  But tonight the words, whether worth the having or not, did not want to come. Shakespeare stared into the candle flame and tried all the other tricks he knew to break the wall between his wit and his pen, but had little luck. While the upper part of his mind dutifully tried to get on with Love's Labour's Won, the deeper wellspring, the part from which inspiration sprang, dwelt with the woes of the ancient Iceni, not with his present characters. He smote his forehead again, this time in good earnest. The sudden pain did him no good, either.

  He looked around in frustration. He had none but himself to blame for his troubles. The hour grew late; he was the only customer left in the place. With everything quiet and serene, he should have written as if fiends were after him. He muttered a curse. Fiends were after him, but not the sort that set his pen free.

  When Kate came by again, he laid down the pen with a sigh. She gave him a sympathetic smile, saying, "I saw you troubled, but did not like to speak, for fear I might send flying the one word that'd free you."

  "That word's nowhere to be found tonight, or else already flown," Shakespeare answered ruefully. "Were my pen a poniard, it would not stab."

  "Say not so, for I know thy yard pierces," Kate said. Her smile, this time, was of a different kind.

  "Ah. Sits the wind in that quarter, then?" Without waiting for an answer, Shakespeare got to his feet.

  Even at such a moment, he was careful to gather up his precious manuscript and pens and ink before heading for the stairway with the serving woman. "Thou'rt sweet, Kate, to give of thyself to a spring gone dry like me."

  "Spring's a long way off, and it's cold outside," she said. "And I doubt me thou'rt dry in all thy humors.

  Else, after last we lay between the sheets, why found I a wet spot there?"

  Laughing, he slipped an arm around her waist. "I own myself outargued," he said. She snuggled against him and sighed softly. He held up his papers. "Belike thou couldst outwrite me, too. Art fain to try?"

  "Go to," she said. "Me that needs must make a mark to set down my name?"

  They came to the top of the stairs. Her door stood just to the right. She opened it. They went inside.

  Kate closed the door. Shakespeare took her in his arms. "Kiss me," he said. She did.

  When he left the ordinary, he'd come no further forward on Love's Labour's Won. His head was high and he had a spring in his step even so. He started to whistle a ballad, then fell silent and shrank into a dark doorway when he heard other footsteps coming down the dark street. If it wasn't curfew time, it was close. Running into a patrol now was the last thing he wanted. The men who walked by spoke in low voices, and in English. He would have bet they too didn't want to run into a patrol. And he didn't want to run into them, either, and silently sighed with relief when they vanished into the fog.

  He sat down at the table in the parlor once he got back to his lodgings, hoping he could set a few words down on paper before he got too sleepy to work. But he hadn't written above a line and a half before Peter Foster stuck his head into the room to see what was going on. "Oh. Master Will. God give you good even," he said.

  "Give you good even," Shakespeare echoed automatically. Then he gaped. "They said you were in the Hole!"

  "Why, so I was." Foster laid a finger by the side of his nose. "God gave me a good even, and a good set of gilks and a bit of charm besides." He held up the skeleton keys for Shakespeare to admire. He looked like a man used to picking locks, sure enough.

  "Bravely done," the poet said. "But will they not come after you again?"

  "Since when? Belike the turnkey knows not I'm gone," Peter Foster said with fine contempt. "Nay, Will, I'll couch a hogshead here tonight, then budge a beak come morning. I tell you true, I'll be glad to 'scape that sawmill who sleeps with us."

  "As you reckon best," Shakespeare said with a shrug. "Me, I'd not care to sleep here in my own bed before fleeing the sheriffs."

  "You fret more than I," Foster said, not unkindly; perhaps he was doing his best not to call Shakespeare a coward. "May I turn Turk if they're here or ever I'm gone. You've seen naught of me, mind."

  "Think what you will of me, but I'm no delator," Shakespeare said. And if they pull off my boots and give me the bastinado till I can bear no more? He did his best not to think about that. He was glad when Peter Foster nodded, apparently satisfied, and went off to bed. But, by the way Love's Labour's Won foundered, it might have been aboard Sir Patrick Spens' ship on the luckless voyage to Norway.

  Shakespeare went to bed himself. Jack Street did indeed make the night hideous, but his snores were the least of what kept Shakespeare awake so long.

  When he got up, Foster was gone. No one had come after the clever little man with the interesting tools.

  Shakespeare went off to the Theatre in a thoughtful mood. His roommate knew crime as he himself knew poesy, and might well have made a better living at his chosen trade.

  " Buenos dias, Your Excellency," Lope de Vega said, sweeping off his hat and bowing to Captain Baltasar GuzmA?n. "How may I serve you this morning?"

  " Buenos dias, Lieutenant," Guzman replied. "First of all, let me compliment you on La dama boba.

  Your lady was a most delightful boob, and I thoroughly enjoyed watching her antics yesterday."

  Lope bowed again, this time almost double. "I am your servant, sir!" he exclaimed in delight. His superior had never before paid him such a compliment for his theatrical work-or, indeed, for work of any other kind.

  Captain Guzman went on, "And my compliments especially for wringing such a fine performance from your Diego. I know that cannot have been easy."

  "Had I known I would have to use him, I would have made the servant a sleepier man," de Vega said.

  "As things were-" He mimed cracking a whip over Diego's back.

  "Even so." Guzman nodded. Then he raised an elegant eyebrow and asked, "Tell me: after which of your mistresses was Lady Nisea modeled? Or should I say, which of your former mistresses? The story is, they had it in mind to throw you into the bear pit for the mastiffs' sport."

  "Pl
ease believe me, your Excellency, it was not so bad as that." He asked Captain GuzmA?n to believe him. He didn't tell his superior that what he said was true.

  Guzman's eyebrows rose higher still. "No, eh? It certainly has been a mighty marvel hereabouts. I suppose I should admire your energy, if not your luck at the bear garden. Everyone who saw them says a man would be lucky to have one such woman, let one two."

  How can I answer that? de Vega wondered. Deciding he couldn't, he didn't try. Instead, he repeated, "How may I serve you, sir?"

  Rather than answering him directly, Baltasar Guzman said, "Your timing could have been better, Lieutenant. In fact, it could hardly have been worse."

  "Sir?"

  "Have you forgotten you are to meet with Cardinal Parsons this morning?" GuzmA?n eyed him, then assumed a severe expression. "I see you have. What a pity. It could be that the Cardinal, being an Englishman and having just come from Canterbury, has not heard of your, ah, escapade. It could be. I hope it is. But I would not count on it. The man is devilishly well informed."

  Lope sighed. "Yes, sir. I know he is," he said glumly. "I'll do the best I can."

  "Splendid. I'm sure you said the same to both your lady friends."

  Ears burning, Lope beat a hasty retreat from Captain GuzmA?n's office. As he'd feared, Enrique waylaid him in the hall. GuzmA?n's servant also bubbled with enthusiasm for La dama boba. "I especially admired Nisea's transformation from a boob to a woman with a mind-and a good mind-of her own," he said.

  Since Lope had worked especially hard to bring off that transformation, Enrique's praise should have delighted him. And, in fact, it did leave him pleased, but he had no time for Enrique now. "You will excuse me, I hope," he said, "but I'm on my way to St. Paul's."

  "Oh, yes, of course, for your meeting with the Archbishop of Canterbury." Enrique nodded wisely.

  Everyone knows my business better than I do, de Vega thought with a stab of resentment. Captain Guzman's servant continued, "He is a very wise man, and a very holy man, too, no doubt."

  "I know," Lope said, desperate to be gone. "If you will excuse me-" Retreating still, he hurried out of the Spanish barracks and west to the greatest cathedral in London. The booksellers near the steps tempted him to linger, but he resisted temptation and went up the stairs and into the great church. If books came bound in skirts, though. Annoyed at himself, he shook his head to try to dislodge the vagrant thought. A deacon came up to him as he stepped into the cool, dim quiet. "And you would be, sir.?" the fellow asked in English.

  Lope proudly replied in his own Castilian tongue: "I have the honor to call myself Senior Lieutenant Lope de Vega Carpio."

  He was not surprised to find the deacon spoke Spanish, too. "Ah, yes. You will be here to meet the Archbishop of Canterbury. Come with me, seA±or."

  Quiet evaporated as the deacon led de Vega through the cathedral. Masterless men dickered with merchants and artisans who might have work for them. Lawyers in rich robes traded gossip. Smiling bonarobas, fragrant with sweet perfume and showing as much soft flesh as they dared, lingered near the lawyers. One of the women smiled at Lope. He ignored her, which turned the smile to a scowl. He didn't care to buy a tart's favors, no matter how fancy and lovely she was: he preferred to fall in love, or at least to imagine he'd fallen in love. And what's the difference? he wondered. Only how long the feeling lasts.

  "Do have a care," the deacon warned him. "Picking pockets, or slitting them, is a sport here."

  "This too, I suppose, is Christian charity," Lope said. The deacon gave him an odd look.

  Away from the vast public spaces of St. Paul's were the chambers the clergy used for their own. The deacon led de Vega to one of those. Then, like Enrique going in to see Captain Guzman, he said, "Wait here for a moment, please," and ducked into the room by himself. When he returned, he beckoned. "His Eminence awaits you with pleasure."

  "He is too kind," Lope murmured.

  Even in the rich regalia of a cardinal, Robert Parsons looked like a monk. His face was long and thin and pale; his close-cropped, graying beard did nothing to hide the hollows under his cheekbones. He held out his ring for de Vega to kiss. "I am pleased to make your acquaintance, Senior Lieutenant," he said in Latin.

  "Thank you, your Eminence," Lope replied in the same language. He switched to English: "I speak your tongue, sir, an you have no Spanish."

  "I prefer Latin. It is more precise," Parsons said. By his appearance, he was nothing if not a precise man.

  "As you wish, of course." Lope hoped his own Latin would meet the test. He read it well, but he was no clergyman, and so did not often speak it. "I am at your service in every way."

  "Good." Cardinal Parsons looked down at some notes on his desk and nodded to himself. "I am told you are the Spanish officer most concerned with sniffing out treason in the English theatre."

  "Yes, your Eminence, I believe that to be true," Lope answered, pleased he'd remembered to use the infinitive.

  "This is because"-the Archbishop of Canterbury checked his notes again-"you are yourself an aspiring dramatist?"

  "Yes, your Eminence," de Vega repeated, wondering if the English churchman would take him to task for it.

  But Parsons only said, "I am glad to hear it, Lieutenant. For treason is afoot in that sphere, and you, being familiar with its devices, are less likely to let yourself be cozened than would someone uninitiated in its mysteries."

  Lope had to think before he answered. The cardinal's Latin was so fluent, so confident, he might have been whisked by a sorcerer from the days of Julius Caesar to this modern age. He made no concessions to Lope's weaker Latinity; Lope got the idea Parsons made few concessions to anyone, save possibly the Pope.

  "Your Eminence, I go to the theatre more to watch the audience than to watch the actors," de Vega said.

  "Many of them I know well, and they have not shown themselves disloyal to Queen Isabella and King Albert."

  Robert Parsons snorted like a horse. Lope needed a moment to realize that was intended for laughter.

  Parsons said, "And how likely is it that they would declare their treason before an officer of his Most Catholic Majesty of Spain?"

  "You make me out to be a fool, a child," Lope said angrily.

  "By no means, Lieutenant." The Archbishop of Canterbury's smile was cold as winter along the Scottish border. "With your own words, you make yourself out to be such."

  Without his intending it, de Vega's hand moved a couple of inches toward the hilt of his rapier. He arrested the motion. Even if he was insulted, drawing sword on a prelate would certainly send him to gaol, and probably to hell. He gave the cardinal a stiff bow. "If you will excuse me, your Eminence-"

  "I will not." Parsons' voice came sharp as a whipcrack. "I tell you there is treason amongst these men, and you will be God's instrument in flensing it out."

  "But, your Eminence"-Lope spread his hands-"if they do not show it to me, how can I find it? There is no treason in plays that are performed. The Master of the Revels sees and approves them before a play reaches the stage. Sir Edmund Tilney is the one who will know if the poets plan sedition-indeed, he has arrested some for trying to say what must not be said."

  Like Parsons' face, his fingers were long and thin and pale. When he drummed them on the desktop, they reminded de Vega of a spider's legs. "Again, you speak of overt treason," Parsons said. "The enemies of God and Spain, like Satan their patron, are more subtle than that. They skulk. They conspire. They-"

  "With whom?" Lope broke in.

  "I shall tell you with whom: with the English nobles who still dream of setting at liberty that murderous heretic jade, Elizabeth their former Queen." Parsons' eyes flashed. "King Philip was too merciful by half in not burning her when first she was seized, and again in not slaying more of the men who served her and upheld her while she ruled."

  He had, Lope remembered, spent more than twenty years in exile from his native land. When he spoke of skulking and conspiring, he spoke of what he knew. Ca
utiously, de Vega asked, "Have you anyone in particular in mind?"

  He expected the Archbishop of Canterbury to name Christopher Marlowe-everyone seemed to put Marlowe at the head of his list of troublemakers-or George Chapman or Robert Greene (though Greene, he'd heard, was ill unto death after eating of a bad dish of pickled herring). But Parsons, after an abrupt nod, replied, "Yes. A slanderous villain by the name of William Shakespeare."

  "Shakespeare?" Lope said in surprise. "I pray your Eminence to forgive me, but you must be mistaken. I know Shakespeare well. He is a man of good temper-of better temper than most poets, I would say."

  "What of the friends of poets?" Cardinal Parsons asked.

  Lope needed a heartbeat to notice he'd put the feminine ending on friends. Well, Baltasar GuzmA?n had warned not much got past the cardinal, and he was right. "Your Eminence!" Lope said reproachfully.

  "Let it go. Let it go. Forget I said it," Parsons told him. "But I warn you, Lieutenant, there is more to that man than meets the eye. He has been seen in homes where a man of his station has no fit occasion to call, and he keeps company no honest man would keep, or want to keep."

  "He knows Marlowe well," Lope said. "Knowing Marlowe, he will also know Marlowe's acquaintances.

  Many of them, I fear, are men such as you describe."

  "There is more to it than that," Cardinal Parsons insisted. "I do not know how much more. That, I charge you to uncover. But I tell you, Lieutenant, there is more to find." His nostrils quivered, like those of a hunting hound straining to take a scent.

  Captain GuzmA?n had dark suspicions about Shakespeare, too. Lope had dismissed those: who ever thinks his immediate superior knows anything? But if Robert Parsons and GuzmA?n had the same idea, perhaps there was something to it. "I shall do everything I can to aid the cause of Spain, your Eminence,"

  de Vega said.

  Chill disapproval in his voice, Parsons answered, "It is not merely the cause of Spain. It is the cause of God." But then he softened: "I do take your point, Lieutenant. Work hard. And work quickly. My latest news is that his Most Catholic Majesty does not improve, but draws closer day by day to his eternal reward. With his crisis, very likely, will come the crisis of our holy Catholic faith here in England. No less than the inquisitors, you defend against heresy. Go forth, knowing God is with you."