Ruled Britannia

He switched from Matthew to Revelations, but Lope had heard enough. Setting down his mug, he ducked out of the Blue Fox and beckoned to the soldiers. With them behind him, he stormed back into the tavern and shouted out a verse from Matthew that John Walsh had skipped: '?And many false prophets shall arise, and shall deceive many.' ' Then he switched to Spanish, shouting, 'Arrest that man there on the table. Santiago and forward!'

'Santiago!' the soldiers roared. They rushed toward the preaching pig butcher.

'Limb of Satan!' an Englishman cried. He hurled his mug at Lope, who ducked. The mug shattered on the morion of the man behind him. Another flying mug hit a Spaniard in the face. He fell with a groan, his nose smashed and bloody.

A moment later, a Spanish sword bit into the pig butcher who'd thrown the mug that hurt the soldier. The Englishman shrieked. More blood spurted, improbably red. 'Let it begin here, as St. John the Divine saith it shall begin at the end of days!' John Walsh bellowed. 'The star called Wormwood and the smiting of the sun! Ay, let it begin here!'

'Wormwood!' the Englishmen yelled.

Lope wondered if they knew what the word meant. Not likely, he judged, but it made a fine rallying cry even so. As for him, he shouted, 'We must take the false preacher now, or London goes up in riot!' It had happened before, though not for four or five years. If it happened again, the blame would land on him. Where would they send him then? The Scottish border? The Welsh mountains? Ireland, which was supposed to be worse than either? Was any place worse than Ireland? If any was, they'd send him there.

An arquebus bellowed, deafeningly loud in the close tavern. The lead ball buried itself in the wall. After that, the firearm was good for nothing but a clumsy club. In a tavern brawl, bludgeons and knives and swords counted for more than guns. De Vega wished for a firearm that shot more than one ball, or at least for one that could be reloaded quickly. Wishing didn't help.

The Spaniards' armor did. So did the extra distance at which they could do harm, thanks to their swords.

But then an Englishman, an enormous fellow, picked up a bench and swung it like a club. The weapon was clumsy but potent. The Englishman felled two soldiers in quick succession.

Another swing almost caved in Lope's skull. But he ducked, stepped close, and stabbed the big man in the stomach with his rapier. The bench fell from the man's hands as he wailed and clutched at himself.

'Come on!' Lope shouted. Only a small knot of stubborn defenders still protected John Walsh.

'Let's away out the back door!' one of them said. De Vega cursed in sonorous Spanish. He hadn't known the Blue Fox had a back door. He hurled himself at the Englishmen, doing his best to forestall their escape.

A couple of them tried to hustle Walsh toward the back of the tavern. They might have pulled him to safety, but he didn't seem to want to go. 'Nay, nay!' he cried, struggling in their grasp as if they were arresting him. 'Let it begin here! It must begin here!'

Sancho tackled him. When he went down, half a dozen Spaniards leaped on him, while the rest drove back or knocked down the Englishmen still on their feet. 'Is he still alive?' Lope asked.

'Yes, Senior Lieutenant. He'll live to hang,' one of his troopers answered.

'After this, I think hanging's too good for him,' Lope said. 'But tie him up and gag him. Gag him well, by God, or the filth he shouts out will bring the English down on us before we can get him to safety.'

Even as things were, stones flew when they emerged from the Blue Fox. But another arquebusier brought his match to the touch-hole of his weapon. It roared and belched forth a great cloud of pungent smoke.

And the ball, as much by luck as anything else, knocked an Englishman kicking. The others drew back, naive enough to believe the Spaniards likely to hit twice in a row. Knowing better than they what arquebuses could do, Lope silently thanked them for their caution.

Back at the Spanish barracks, Captain GuzmA?n asked, 'You have the prisoner?'

'Yes, your Excellency,' Lope replied.

GuzmA?n ignored his draggled state and the wounds his men had taken. He'd given the right answer. '

Muy bien, Lieutenant,' GuzmA?n said. 'You may now return to the Theatre.' Weariness fell from Lope.

Guzman had given the right answer, too.

Sam King stepped on William Shakespeare's foot. 'Ow!' Shakespeare yelped; the young man still wore muddy boots. A little more calmly, the poet added, ' 'Ware wheat, Master King; 'ware wheat.'

'I pray pardon, sir,' King said. 'I'm yet unused to the confines of this room.' He spoke with a broad Midlands accent. Shakespeare had sounded much the same when he first came to London, but, wanting to take the stage, had had to learn in a hurry to sound like a Londoner born.

'By God, you're used to the confines of my toe, and to flatten it to flatter your fancy,' Shakespeare grumbled. But then he sighed. 'I own there's no help for't. And had the Widow Kendall taken in another lodger male in place of this Cicely Sellis, he'd trample me in your place.'

'Ay, belike,' Sam King said. ' 'Tis monstrous strange Mistress Cicely should hire a whole room to herself of the old hag. 'Tis monstrous dear, too.' His belly rumbled. 'Marry, but I'm hungry,' he muttered, more to himself than to Shakespeare. Whatever he did in the city-some of this and a little of that, Shakespeare gathered-it got him little money. His face had a pinched, pale look, and his clothes hung loosely on him.

The take at the Theatre had been good. As Christmas neared, people wanted to be gay. Shakespeare had gold not only from Lord Burghley but from the Spaniards as well. He took out three pennies and handed them to Sam King. 'Here. Get yourself to an ordinary and eat your fill tonight.'

To his amazement, King began to blubber. 'God bless you, sir. Oh, God bless you,' he said. 'I tread on you, and then you give me good for evil, as our Lord says a man ought to do.' His scrawny fingers closed over the coins. 'I'll pay you back, sir. Marry, I will.'

'An't please you. An you can without pinching,' Shakespeare said. 'An it be otherwise. ' He shrugged.

Threepence meant less to him than to Sam King. The skinny young man blew his nose on the fingers of the hand that wasn't holding the money, wiped them on his shabby doublet, and hurried out of the lodging house.

Shakespeare got out his writing tools and took them to the ordinary he favored. He was relieved not to find his fellow lodger there; King would have insisted on chattering at him when he wanted to work.

Love's Labour's Won was almost done. He needed to finish it as fast as he could, too. For one thing, the company's patience was wearing thin. For another, he didn't know how long he had till Philip of Spain died. He would need to have both his special commissions ready by then, whichever one actually saw the light of day.

Kate the serving woman came up to him. 'God give you good even, Master Will,' she said. 'The threepenny is barley porridge with boiled beef.' He nodded. She went on, 'There's lambswool, if you'd liefer have it than the common brewing.'

'I would, and I thank you for't,' Shakespeare answered. On a chilly December evening, warm spiced beer would go down well.

Maybe the lambswool helped his thoughts flow freely. Whatever the cause, he sat and wrote till he was the last man left in the ordinary. Only when his candle flame began to leap and gutter as the candle neared extinction did he reluctantly pick up his papers and quills and ink and go back to the lodging house.

'It's long past curfew, Master Shakespeare,' Jane Kendall said severely when he came in. 'I was afeard for you.'

'Here I am.' Shakespeare didn't want to talk to her. He threw a pine log on the hearth. Before long, it flared up hot and bright. The Widow Kendall sent him a reproachful stare. He never noticed it. He sat down at the table in front of the fire to write a little more while the log gave such fine light. His landlady threw her hands in the air and stalked off to bed.

He hardly noticed her go. It was one of those magical evenings where nothing stood between his mind and the sheet of paper in front of him. He'd been writing for some time-how long by the clock, he couldn't have said, but twenty-five or thirty lines' worth, with scarcely a blotted word-before realizing he wasn't alone in the room. The new lodger, Cicely Sellis, stood in the doorway watching him work.

'Give you good den,' she said when he looked up. 'I misliked troubling you, your pen scratching along so fast.'