hardly deny.
Roaring down towards Bishopsgate, the crowd from the Theatre cried Elizabeth's name again and again, ever louder, ever more fiercely. They called down curses on the heads of Philip II, Philip III, and every Spaniard ever born. They cursed Isabella and Albert, too. And, every now and again, one of them would bawl out a line or two from
They hadn't come far into the rickety clutter of tenements and shops and dives of Bishopsgate Ward Without the Wall when a constable-not Walter Strawberry, but a younger, thinner man with a red-blond beard-stepped into the middle of the street, held up a hand, and shouted, 'Stand, there! Stand, I say!
What means this unseemly brabble?'
They showed him. Someone at the head of the baying pack stooped, picked up a stone, and flung it. It caught the constable in the face. Shakespeare, taller than most, saw blood spurt as the constable's nose smashed to ruin. With a moan, the man clutched at himself and sank to his knees. The pack rolled over him, punching, kicking, stomping, stabbing.
By the time Shakespeare went past, the constable was hardly more than a red smear trampled into the stinking muck. The poet's stomach lurched. He stumbled on, fighting not to spew up his guts. And I am father to that, he told himself, wishing he could find a sweet, soothing lie instead: not the sole father, but father nonetheless.
People stared from windows and doorways. Even here, murder was seldom done so openly. Even here, curses were seldom cried so loud, or from so many throats at once. And if anything could draw shopkeepers and laborers, robbers and thieves, barmaids and trulls, open murder and loud curses seemed the proper lodestones. The crowd swelled, as if by magic.
Every step closer to Bishopsgate raised more alarm in Shakespeare. The Spaniards and wild Irishmen standing guard at the gate would not let themselves be taken unawares, as the luckless constable had done. (Had he a wife? Children? He'd come home to them no more.) If they had time, they would close the gates against this storm. Even if they didn't, they'd surely stand and fight.
Daylight was fading, the sun sinking down through smoke towards Westminster. More than enough light remained, though, to show that Bishopsgate stood open. Cheers rose from countless throats, cheers and a renewed cry: 'To the Tower! On to the Tower!'
Blood splashed the gray stone walls of the gateway. One Spanish boot lay crumpled close by. Those were the only signs Shakespeare saw that soldiers had ever stood here. Were they dead? Fled? Some dead, assuredly, he thought, eyeing the bloodstains and that boot and wondering what had befallen the man who'd worn it.
'On to the Tower! To the Tower! To free Elizabeth! To free the Queen!' Those savage shouts grew louder as the crowd from the Theatre-and from the tenements beyond the walls-swarmed into London like a conquering army.
They weren't the only swarm loose in the city. More cries and curses rose: some single spies, some in battalions. Madness was loosed here. Maybe Robert Cecil had worked better than even he knew.
'A don! A don!' A new shout went up. So might hunters have cried, A fox! A fox! Shakespeare got a glimpse of the Spaniard, saw horrified amazement spread across his face, saw him turn and start to run, and saw an Englishman tackle him from behind as if in a Shrove Tuesday football match. The Spaniard went down with a wail. He never got up again.
If the Spaniards could have put a line of arquebusiers in front of the rampaging crowd from the Theatre and poured a couple of volleys into it, it would have melted away. Shakespeare was sure of that. A line of armored pikemen might have halted it, too. Even as things were, groundlings and folk from the tenements-some still yelling about freeing Elizabeth-broke away to plunder shops that tempted them.
But no line of ferocious, lean-faced, swarthy Spaniards appeared. Shouts and cries and the harsh snarl of gunfire suggested the dons were busy, desperately busy, elsewhere in London. When chance swept Shakespeare and Richard Burbage together for a moment, the player said, 'Belike they'll make a stand at the Tower.'
'Likely so,' Shakespeare agreed unhappily. Those frowning walls had been made to hold back an army, and this. thing he was a part of was anything but.
Up Tower Hill, where he'd watched the auto de fe almost a year before. A great roar, a roar full of triumph, rose from the men in front of him as they passed the crest of the hill and swept on towards the Tower Ditch and the walls beyond. And when Shakespeare crested the hill himself, he looked ahead and he roared, too, in joy and amazement and suddenly flaring hope. Will Kemp had been right, right and more than right. All the gates to the Tower of London stood open.
After tenderly kissing Cicely Sellis goodbye, Lope de Vega stopped in a nearby ordinary for his dinner and a cup of wine with which to celebrate his conquest. The cup of wine became two, then three, and then four: a conquest like that deserved a good deal of celebrating. By the time he started off towards the Spanish barracks, the clock had already struck one. That didn't worry him. As far as he could remember, he had nowhere else he needed to be.
As far as he could remember. Others, though, might remember further. He'd just turned into St. Swithin's Lane when a startled shout came from up ahead: 'Lieutenant de Vega! Madre de Dios, senor, what are you doing here at this hour?'
'Oh, hello, Enrique,' Lope said. 'I'm coming back to the barracks, of course. What else should I be doing now?'
He meant it for a joke. But Captain GuzmA?n's servant stared at him and answered, 'What else should you be doing?
By God and all the saints, sir, I never expected to find you here.'
'Don Juan de Idiquez. ' Lope gaped. He said the name as if he'd never heard it before in his life.
Indeed, for a moment that seemed to be true. But then it was as if a veil were torn from in front of his eyes. Memory, real memory, came flooding back: memory of why he should have been at the Theatre, and memory of why he'd gone to Cicely Sellis' lodging-house-to
He crossed himself, not once but again and again. At the same time, he cursed as foully as he knew how- magnificent, rolling, guttural obscenity that left Enrique's eyes wider than ever and his mouth hanging open. De Vega didn't care. He wanted a bath, though even that might not make him feel clean again. He wondered if anything would ever make him feel clean again.
'That bruja, that whore-she bewitched me, Enrique, she bewitched me and she swived me and she sent me on my way like a. like a. like an I don't know what. And that means, that has to mean-'
'I don't understand, senor,' Enrique broke in. 'I don't understand any of this.'
'Do you understand treason? Do you understand black, vile, filthy treason? And treason coming soon-soon, by God! — or she never would have. ' De Vega didn't waste time finishing. He whirled and started back up St. Swithin's Lane.
'Where are you going?' Enrique cried after him.
'First, to kill that puta,' Lope snarled. 'And then to the Theatre, to do all I can to stop whatever madness they're hatching there.' Even in his rage, he realized he might not-probably would not-be able to manage that by himself. He stabbed out a finger towards Enrique. 'As for you, go back to Captain GuzmA?n. Tell him to send a troop of men up to the Theatre as quick as he can. Tell him it's bad, very bad, as bad as can be.
Enrique fled as if ten million demons from hell bayed at his heels. Lope started up towards Bishopsgate at a fast, purposeful stride, halfway between a walk and a trot. Black fury filled him. He'd never imagined a woman could use him so. Mercenaries like Catalina IbaA±ez he understood. But what Cicely Sellis had done to him was ten, a hundred, a thousand times worse. Not only had she stolen a piece of him, she'd taken her pleasure with him afterwards to waste more of his time and to make sure he didn't get that piece back.
And I wouldn't have, either, if I hadn't run into Enrique, he thought savagely. But I am myself again, and she'll pay. Oh, how she'll pay! His hand closed hungrily on the hilt of his rapier.
