Ruled Britannia

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.'

'Please 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.