had died.
The beasts were gone, taken away to another pit. Their stenches lingered: the sharp stink of the dogs and the bears' ranker, muskier reek. With so many captives packed into the place, the commonplace smells of unwashed men and their wastes were crowding out the animal odors.
Gray clouds gathered overhead. If it rained, the arena floor would turn to mud. Lope knew he would have to find himself a place in one of the galleries. I should have done that sooner, he thought. But he hadn't had the energy. He'd been sunk in lethargy since taking the blow that almost broke his skull, and especially since failing to avenge himself on Cicely Sellis. After that failure, nothing seemed to matter.
Not far away, one of his countrymen asked another, 'In the name of God, why does no one rescue us?'
'Those who win, rescue,' the other Spaniard said. 'If we are not rescued, it is because we do not win.'
That made much more sense than Lope wished it did. The first Spaniard said, 'But how can we lose to this English rabble? We beat them before-beat them with ease. Are they such giants now? Have we turned into dwarfs these past ten years?'
'Our army is scattered over the country now,' the other man answered. 'English soldiers were supposed to do much of the job for us, so a lot of our men could go back to the Netherlands and put down the rebels there.'
'Oh, yes. Oh, yes!' the first captive said. 'The English did a wonderful job of holding down the countryside-till they turned on us like so many rabid dogs.'
Lope said, 'And the Netherlands have risen in revolt again, too, or so the English say. Just when we thought we had them quiet at last. ' He wanted to shake his head, but didn't. Even now, more than a week after he'd been struck down, such motion could bring on blinding headaches. After a moment, he continued, 'And who knows what Philip III will do once word of this finally reaches him?'
Neither of the other men answered for a little while. At last, one of them murmured, 'Ah, if only his father were still alive.' His friend nodded. So did Lope, cautiously. Philip II would have had the determination to fight hard against an uprising like this. That, of course, was not the smallest reason the English had waited till he was dead to rebel. And everyone knew all too well that Philip III was not the man, not half the man, his father had been.
That night, cannon fire off to the east interrupted Lope's rest. He wondered what it meant, but no one inside the bear-baiting arena could see out. He'd just dozed off in spite of the distant booms when an enormous explosion, much larger than a mere cannon blast, jerked him upright and make him wonder if his head would burst as well. After that, the gunfire quickly diminished. An almost aching silence returned.
Having nothing else he could do, he lay down and went back to sleep.
When the sun rose, the Englishmen who came in to feed their captives were jubilant. 'Some of your galleons essayed sailing up the Thames,' said the fellow who handed Lope a bowl of sour-smelling porridge, 'but we sent 'em back, by God, tails 'twixt their legs.'
'How, I pray you?' Lope asked. He shoveled the porridge into his mouth with his fingers, for he had not even a horn spoon to call his own.
'How? Fireships, the which we sent at 'em from just beyond London Bridge,' the Englishman answered.
'The current slid the blazing hulks against your fleet sailing upriver, the which had to go about right smartly and flee before 'em: else they too had been given o'er to the flames. As indeed the
'The San Juan?' Lope crossed himself, muttering an Ave Maria. He'd come to England in that ship.
'And the San Mateo de Portugal lies hard aground,' the fellow added, 'hard aground and captured. I doubt not e'en you cock-a-hoop dons'll think twice or ever you try the like again.' He went on to feed someone else.
'What does he say?' a Spaniard asked Lope. 'I heard in amongst his English the names of our ships.'
De Vega translated. He added, 'I don't know that he was telling the truth, mind.'
'It seems likely,' the other man said. 'It seems only too likely. Would a lie have such detail?'
'A good one might,' Lope answered, though he knew he was trying to convince himself at least as much as the man with whom he was talking.
Day followed day. No Spanish force fought its way into London. At least as much as anything else, that convinced Lope the Englishman had told him the truth. The longer he stayed in the bear-baiting arena, the plainer it grew that the English uprising was succeeding.
With the arena still full of prisoners, some of the Londoners' usual sport was taken away from them.
Escorted by armed and armored guards, they began coming in to view the Spanish captives. Lope suspected it was a poor amusement next to what they were used to. Maybe they'll set mastiffs on us instead of on the bears, he thought. He took care never to say that aloud. When it first crossed his mind, it seemed a bitter joke. But the English might do it, if only it occurred to them.
Most of the men who came to see the Spaniards showed them a certain respect. Anyone who'd fought in war knew misfortune could befall even the finest soldiers. The women were worse. They jeered and mocked and generally made Lope think the guardsmen were protecting his countrymen and him from them rather than the reverse.
And then, one drizzly day, he saw a black-haired, black-eyed beauty on an English nobleman's arm. The nobleman stared at the Spaniards as if at so many animals in a cage. So did his companion, who laughed and murmured in his ear and rubbed against him and did everything but set her hand on his codpiece right there in front of everyone. And he only strutted and swaggered and slipped his arm around her waist, displaying to the world the new toy he'd found.
Slowly and deliberately, Lope turned away. He might have known Catalina IbaA±ez would make the best of whatever happened in England. He could have told that nobleman a thing or two, but what point?
Besides, sooner or later the fellow would find out for himself.
De Vega did hope Catalina didn't recognize him. By now, the beard was dark on his cheeks and jawline as well as his chin. To her eye, he should have been just one more glum and grimy prisoner among so many. Having her gloat over his misery would have been more than he could bear. He watched her out of the corner of his eye.
She gave no sign she knew him: a tiny victory, but all he'd get in here. She laughed again, a sound like tinkling bells, and stood on tiptoe to kiss her new protector on the cheek. Chuckling indulgently, he patted her backside. Lope prayed for a bear, or even for mastiffs. God must have been busy somewhere else, for Catalina and the Englishman strolled out of the arena together.
XV
As it had on that fateful afternoon six weeks earlier, absolute silence reigned in the Theatre. Into it, Joe Boardman once more spoke Boudicca's final lines:
'We Britons never did, nor never shall,
Lie at the proud foot of a conqueror,
But when we do first help to wound ourselves.
Come the three corners of the world in arms,
And we shall shock them. Naught shall make us rue,
If Britons to themselves do rest but true.'
The Queen of the Iceni died again.
As he had then, Shakespeare strode for ward past Boudicca's body. As he had then, he ended the play:
'No epilogue here, unless you make it;
If you want your freedom, go and take it.'
And, as he had then, he stood there at the front of the stage and waited for whatever came next.
What came, this time, was applause, wave after wave of it, from groundlings and galleries alike.
