mother hen. Laughing, she sat.
The boatman pushed the rowboat into the Thames, then scrambled aboard himself, his boots dripping.
He knew how to handle the oars, feathering them so next to no water dripped from the blades. They hadn't gone far when Nell Lumley wrinkled her short, pert nose. 'By Jesu, the river stinks.' A dead dog, all puffy and bloated, chose that moment to float past them, heading downstream.
'How can it help stinking?' Lope replied. 'It is London's sewer. And London stinks. What city stinks not? The city of heaven, mayhap, proving angels dwell therein.'
Of course, folk downstream drank the water into which folk farther upstream poured their shit and piss and offal. Lope knew that. He'd always known it. How could he, how could anyone, help knowing it?
But it wasn't anything he usually thought about. He took it for granted, as anyone did. Now, bobbing
' 'Steeth, lean over the side or ever you cast!' the boatman exclaimed.
And put more filth in the river, de Vega thought. He clamped his teeth together. In a little while, the sick spell passed. Nell said, 'If passage over the Thames makes thee like to sick up thy dinner, what of coming here in the Invincible Armada?'
Remembering the passage from Lisbon to Dover almost did make him lose his last meal. He patted his mistress' hand and gave her the prettiest lie he could come up with: 'The company I keep here makes me forget all that chanced before I set foot on England's shore.'
Nell Lumley blushed and stammered. The boatman, sweat starting out under his arms despite the chilly weather, made a distinct retching noise. Lope shot him a hard look. He stared back, only effort on his face. Nell didn't seem to have noticed. Lope let it pass-for the moment. Englishmen were rude by nature.
The boat's keel grated on mud less than a furlong west of London Bridge. 'Southwark, sir,' the boatman said, as smoothly as if he hadn't been insolent a moment before. He pointed. 'There's the new bear-baiting garden-you can see it past the roofs of the stews.'
'Yes. Thank you.' De Vega handed Nell out of the boat. He tipped the boatman only a farthing. True, the fellow had rowed well, but he didn't intend to forget the way the man had mocked his compliment.
Without a word, the boatman pocketed the small coin. Without a word, he shoved his boat into the Thames and started rowing back toward London. And then, out of range of Lope's rapier, he let fly:
'Leather-jerkin, crystal-button, knot-pated, agate-ring, puke-stocking, caddis-garter, smooth-tongue Spanish pouch!'
No matter how useless it was, Lope's hand flew to the hilt of his sword. Nell giggled, which did nothing to improve his temper. She said, 'Fret not. He's jealous, nothing more.'
'And so he hath good reason to be,' Lope answered, mollified, 'for am I not the luckiest man alive in Christendom?'
'Ah,' Nell said softly, and dropped her eyes.
They had to walk down a street of stews to get to the bear-baiting. Even though de Vega went arm in arm with his companion, the lewd women called out invitations that made his ears burn. Pretending he didn't hear, he kept walking.
'He wants you not,' one of the women called to another, 'for see you? He hath already a whore of his own.'
Where Lope had been angry at the boatman, Nell was furious at the prostitute. 'Stinking, poxy callet!'
she yelled. 'I bite the thumb at thee!' That was the
The contents of a chamber pot came flying out of a third-story window and splashed in the street just in front of them. Fortunately, most of the splash went the other way; Lope and Nell weren't badly fouled.
Nell was still fuming. 'Henry VIII closed the stews,' she said, 'nor did they open again until the coming of. Queen Isabella and King Albert.'
In different company, she might have said something hot about the Spaniards, Lope thought. But he said only, 'King Henry may have closed
'That they dared cast whoredom in my face. ' But Nell didn't directly answer Lope's comment, from which he concluded she couldn't very well disagree with him.
They hurried on toward the bear garden. A long queue of Englishmen and — women of all estates, leavened by a sprinkling of Spaniards, advanced toward the entry. The building was an oval that put de Vega in mind of a Roman amphitheater, though built of wood and not enduring stone. Inside, dogs were already barking and growling furiously.
At the entryway, Lope gave the fellow taking money a pair of pennies. The Englishman waved him forward. At the stairs farther on, most people went up. He handed fourpence to the man waiting there with another cash box. The man gave him a professionally courteous nod. 'Want to be in at the death, eh?' he said. 'Go on down, then, and find places for yourselves as close to the pit as ye may.'
'There!' Nell pointed. A few spaces remained in the very lowest row of benches. 'If we hurry-' Now she led Lope, not the other way round. She went so fast, she tripped on the hem of her skirt as she hurried down the stairs. She might have fallen had he not held her up. 'Gramercy,' she said, and kissed him on the cheek.
An Englishman and his wife and their young son were making for the same seats. They gave Lope and Nell sour looks when they found themselves edged out. The man, a big, burly fellow, muttered something into his beard. 'Nay, hush,' said his wife, whose pinched face bore what looked to be a perpetually worried expression. 'Beshrew me if he be not a don.'
'He's a thief, that's what he is,' the man rumbled. 'He'd steal an egg out of a cloister, he would, like all his breed.' But he went off and found seats for himself and his family a good distance away from de Vega.
Lope looked back over his shoulder and bared his teeth in what was as much a challenge as a smile. The Englishman would not meet his eye. Lope nodded to himself, proud as a fighting cock that hadn't had to use his spurs to beat a rival.
Down in the pit, the first bear was already chained to the stout iron stake in the center of the earthen floor. He was a good-sized beast, and didn't look too badly starved. His hot, rank odor filled Lope's nostrils. The mastiffs, still caged, smelled him, too. Their barking grew more frantic by the moment.
The Englishman sitting next to Lope nudged him and said, 'Half a crown on old bruin there to slay before they kill him six dogs or more. If you like, a crown.'
Lope eyed him. He wasn't all that well dressed; five shillings-even two and sixpence-would be a lot of money for him. And he looked a little too eager, a little too confident. Men who knew too much about bears and dogs were the bane of the garden, cheating those without inside information. 'I thank you, but no,' de Vega said. 'I'm here for to watch the fight, no more.' The Englishman looked disappointed, but Lope had declined too politely for him to make anything of it.
'A cozener?' Nell asked in a low voice.
'Without a doubt,' Lope answered.
A wineseller moved through the crowd. Nell waved to him. Lope bought a cup for her and one for himself.
He looked around the arena. It was almost full now. Before long, they would. He couldn't even finish the thought before they did. One man with a lever could lift the movable sides of all the mastiffs' cages at once. Baying like the wolves their cousins, the great dogs swarmed into the baiting pit.
One died almost at once, his neck broken by a shrewd buffet from the bear's great paw. The rest of the mastiffs, more furious than ever, leaped at the bear, clamping their jaws to his leg, his haunch, his belly, his ear. Roaring almost like a lion, he rolled in the dirt, crushing another animal beneath him. A couple of other mastiffs sprang free before his weight fell on them. Muzzles already red with blood, they sprang back into the fight.
'Oh, bravely done!' Nell Lumley cried from behind Lope. She clapped her hands. Her eyes glistened.
'Tear him to pieces!'
Nor was hers the only voice raised in the bear garden. Shouts of, 'Kill him!' and, 'Bite him!' rose from all three levels. So did yells of, 'Rend the dogs!' and, 'Rip 'em to rags!' Some of those surely came from folk who'd put money on the bear. But the English, seeing one animal chained and attacked by ten, were perversely likely to take him into their hearts, at least for a little while.
