Ruled Britannia

arm, as from a cut. Had he been wounded there? He couldn't remember, not at first.

At first, he had trouble remembering his name, let alone anything else. He had no idea why he lay in the middle of some London street-yes, this was London; that much he knew-covered in blood and, now, puke. He had no idea who the corpses under him and around him and sprawling across his legs were, either. But that they were corpses he did not doubt; no living man's flesh could be so cold.

More cautiously this time, he tried again to sit. The pain forced another moan from him, but he succeeded. Crossing himself, he wriggled away from the dead body on him. But he could not escape them all. They were too many, and he too weak to move far yet.

Why such slaughter? Who were these slain? The why he could not recall, not with bells of torment clanging in his head. The who? There not far away, face pale and still in the moonlight, lay the sergeant who'd told him Captain GuzmA?n was down. He remembered that. How GuzmA?n had come to fall, though, remained beyond him.

And not just Guzman. ' Madre de Dios, ' Lope whispered softly, and crossed himself again. The corpses piled around him were all Spaniards, scores of Spaniards. He shuddered. His guts knotted anew, though now he had nothing left in him to give back.

Even as the spasm wracked him, what had to be cold truth slid into his clouded wits. They threw me here because they thought I was dead, too. At the moment, he rather wished he were. But then he saw a body with a slit throat gaping wide like a second mouth, and another, and another. They'd made sure of a lot of men. They hadn't bothered with him. He breathed. His heart beat-his temples thudded each time his heart beat. His eyes fell on another cut throat. No, he didn't-quite-feel like dying yet.

They? The English. It had to be the English. They'd risen. They must have risen. But why still eluded him.

Everything had been peaceful, as far as he could remember. He should have played Juan de IdiA?quez in King Philip at the Theatre. Had he? He didn't think so.

Nothing was peaceful now. Along with the death stench of so many men, he smelled more smoke than he should have even in smoky London. The night was alive, hideously alive, with shouts and screams from far and near. Somewhere a block or two away, a pistol banged. The report made Lope's head want to explode.

King Philip. The Theatre. Shakespeare. Cicely Sellis. De Vega stiffened. The chain of associations took his thoughts down a road closed till then. 'That puta!' he gasped. 'That bruja!' She'd bewitched him, seduced him, made him forget all about the Theatre, so that he went back towards the barracks instead, went back towards the barracks and. He cursed. He'd lost it, whatever it was.

He tried to stand. He needed three separate efforts before he could. Even then, he swayed like a scrawny sapling in a storm. A chorus of drunken English voices floated through the air:

'Death-Death-Death to the dons!' The Englishmen howled out laughter and obscenities, then took it up afresh. 'Death-Death-Death to the dons!' More gloating laughter.

Lope's legs almost went out from under him. He staggered over to a wall and leaned against it. He'd heard that chorus before. He'd been fighting his way towards the Tower of London. He remembered that, and barricades in the streets, and every damned Englishman in the world running toward him and his comrades with whatever weapon he chanced to have. And.

'And we must have lost,' Lope said. Explaining things to himself seemed to help. 'By God and St. James, we must have lost.' They'd shouted Santiago! He remembered that, too. His throat was still raw with it.

But God and St. James hadn't heeded them.

The Tower of London. Even with his wits scrambled, he knew who was kept there. He'd known that as long as he'd been in England. And, just in case he hadn't, those roaring, drunken Englishmen started a new chorus: 'God bless good Queen Bess!'

Elizabeth free? If she was, she'd draw rebels as the North Pole drew a compass needle. England had never been much more than sullenly acquiescent to the Spanish occupation. Given time, it might have become quieter. But a rising now. A rising now could be very bad, and he knew it.

He laughed, a small, crackbrained laugh. Crackbrained indeed, he thought through his pulsing, pounding headache. This rising, plainly, was already about as bad as it could get.

Quiet footfalls-three or four Englishmen coming up the street. De Vega froze into immobility. The wall that half held him up was shadowed. They didn't see him. The thought of a live Spaniard never entered their minds, anyhow. They intended plundering the dead.

They shoved bodies this way and that. 'We are come too late,' one of them said sorrowfully. 'Too many others here before us: we have but their leavings.'

'You will steal, James, an egg out of a cloister,' another replied; by the way he said it, he meant it as praise. 'Think you not you'll find somewhat worth the having?'

'Haply so,' James replied, 'yet where's the ironmongery they had about 'em? Gone, lost as a town woman's maidenhead. We could have got good coin for casques and corselets and swords, but see you any of the like? I will rather trust a Fleming with my butter or an Irishman with my aqua-vitae bottle than those others to have spared the Spaniards' cutlery.'

Soldiers and scavengers robbed the fallen after battle. They had since the beginning of time. Lope had done it himself here in England. But never had he heard it so calmly, so cold-bloodedly, hashed over.

'Here's a crucifix-might be gold,' another robber said. Moonlight flashed from a knifeblade as he cut it free.

The one called James remained gloomy, saying, 'Mind me, Henry: 'twill prove but brass when your glaziers gaze on't come daylight. Were't gold, it had been gone long since.' But then he stooped and let out a soft grunt of pleasure. 'Or peradventure I'm mistook, for here's a fine fat purse yet unslit, the which I cannot say of this wight's weasand.'

Off to the west, a sharp volley of arquebus fire was followed a moment later by another, and then by the deep boom of a cannon. 'Shall we cast down the dons and cast 'em out, think you?' the man called Henry asked.

'What boots it?' someone else replied. 'Or the dogs tear the bear or the bear rend the dogs, the rats in the wainscoting thrive.' They all laughed, and then, self-proclaimed rats, stole away.

Lope realized he had better leave, too. His comrades' bodies would draw more plunderers, and some might spy him. He could not have fought a mouse, let alone a rat. And he discovered he had nothing with which to fight. His rapier was gone. He hadn't even noticed till that moment. And, when his hand went to the sheath of his belt knife, sheath and knife had likewise vanished. Sure enough, plenty of robbers had already visited the Spaniards.

Where do I go? he wondered. What do I do?

More gunfire off to the west decided him. If there was still real fighting off in that direction, he would-he might-find his countrymen there. And if he found Englishmen before his countrymen, he would likely also find his death. He staggered up Thames Street, weaving from side to side like a sot. He made his way past two barricades, now mostly but not quite torn down, and past more bodies. He still remembered little of the fight, and nothing of the blow that had almost caved in his skull. He wondered if he ever would.

Little by little, his wits did seem to be coming back to life. Things like a raging thirst and the vile aftertaste of vomit in his mouth began to register, where before they'd been nothing but background to the thundering misery in his head. The river, he remembered, lay only a block away. He turned town an alley and made his way towards it at the best pace he could muster. He would have outsped any snail. A tortoise? Possibly not.

Across the Thames, a great fire-no, two-blazed in Southwark. The light hurt Lope's eyes, as it might have after too much wine. He looked down-looked down at himself for the first time since waking amongst the dead. His stomach lurched yet again. He was all over blood, from head to foot.

He needed several heartbeats to figure out it wasn't all his. It couldn't be. If it were, he'd have had none left inside him. How many others had bled on him while he lay senseless? Too many. Oh, far too many!

He stumbled on towards the river. When at last he reached it, he sank to his knees, at least as much from weakness as from thirst, though he was very dry indeed. He cupped his hands and brought water to his mouth. It tasted of mud and-blood? He couldn't tell whether the blood was in the water or on his hands or on his face. He drank and drank, then splashed more water onto his cheeks and forehead. The cold hurt dreadfully for a moment, but then seemed to soothe.