Many doors stood open, the rich odors of cookery wafting out warring with those of garbage and sewage. From Advent, the fourth Sunday before the Nativity, to Christmas Eve, people restricted their diets. On Christmas Eve itself, meat, cheese, and eggs were all forbidden. But Christmas. Christmas was a day of release, and also of sharing. Only skinflints closed their doors against visitors on Christmas Day.
A man in what looked like a beggar's rags with a roast goose leg in one hand and a mug of wine in the other came up the street toward Lope. By the way he wobbled as he walked, he'd already downed several mugs. But he gave Lope an extravagant bow all the same. 'God bless you on the day, sir,' he said.
'And you, sir,' de Vega replied, returning the bow as if to an equal. On Christmas, as on Easter, were not all men equal in Christ?
Lope did have to ask after St. Ethelberge's church. But people indeed proved eager to help him find it.
He got there just when a Mass was ending. And he got his answer without having to ask the priest, for with his own eyes he saw Shakespeare coming out of the church in a slashed doublet of black and crimson as fancy as anything Christopher Marlowe might wear.
Lope thought about waving and calling out a greeting. He thought about it for a heartbeat, and then thought better of it. He ducked around a corner instead, before Shakespeare spotted him. What excuse could he offer for being in Bishopsgate on Christmas morning, save that he was spying on the English poet? None, and he knew it.
He got back to the barracks in the center of town without asking anyone for directions. That left him proud of himself; he was strutting as he made his way to Captain Guzman's office. And he'd been right, and GuzmA?n, for once, wrong. That added to the strut. He looked forward to rubbing his superior's nose in it.
Whatever he looked for, he didn't get it. When he opened the door, Guzman wasn't there. His servant, Enrique, sat behind his desk, frowning in concentration over a quarto edition of one of Marlowe's plays.
He read English better than he spoke it, though still none too well.
He didn't notice the door opening. Lope had to cough. 'Oh!' Enrique said in surprise, blinking behind his spectacles. 'Good day, Senior Lieutenant.'
'Good day,' Lope replied politely. 'Where's your principal?'
'He was bidden to a feast, sir,' Guzman's servant replied. 'He left me behind here to take your report.
Did the priest at this church with the name no sane man could pronounce see Senor Shakespeare at Mass today?'
'What do you do if I tell you no?' de Vega asked, trying not to show how angry he was. GuzmA?n could send him off to Bishopsgate on Christmas morning, but did the noble stay around to hear what he'd found? Not likely! He went off to have a good time. And if I'd been here, maybe someone would have invited me to this feast, too.
'I bring his Excellency the news, of course,' Enrique said. 'After that, I suppose he sends out an order for Shakespeare's arrest. Do I need to go to him?'
'No.' Lope shook his head, then jabbed his chest with his thumb. 'I myself saw Shakespeare leaving the church of St. Ethelberge'-he could pronounce it (better than most Spaniards, anyway), and didn't miss a chance to show off-'not an hour ago, so there's no need to disturb Captain GuzmA?n at his revels.'
'I'm glad,' Enrique said. De Vega wondered how he meant that. Glad he didn't have to go looking for GuzmA?n? But then the servant went on, 'From everything I can tell, the Englishman is too fine a poet for me to want him to burn in hell for opposing the true and holy Catholic faith.'
' Tienes razan, Enrique,' Lope said. 'I had the same thought myself.' And if Enrique agrees with me, he must be right.
'Do you have any other business with my master, Lieutenant?' the servant asked.
Yes, but not the sort you mean-this shabby treatment he's shown me comes close to touching my honor, Lope thought. But he wouldn't tell that to Guzman's lackey. He would either take it up with the officer himself or, more likely, decide it wasn't a deliberate insult and stop worrying about it. All he said to Enrique was, 'A happy Christmas to you.'
'And to you, senor.' As Lope turned to go, Enrique picked up the play once more. He read aloud:
'
The stars move still, time runs, the clock will strike,
The devil will come, and Faustus must be damned.
O, I'll leap up to my God! Who pulls me down?'
This is very fine poetry, I think.'
'And I,' de Vega agreed, 'even if he borrowed the slowly running horses of the night from Ovid.'
'Well, yes, of course,' said Enrique, who, despite being a servant, somewhere had acquired a formidable education. 'But he uses the line in a way that makes it his own. He doesn't just trot it out to show how learned he is.'
'A point,' Lope said. 'Marlowe is a very clever man-and if you don't believe me, ask him.'
Guzman's servant grinned. 'Meaning no offense to you,
'I have no idea what you're talking about, Enrique,' de Vega replied, deadpan. They both laughed. Lope closed the door behind him and headed for his own quarters.
He expected to discover Diego there, snoring up a storm. Christmas was a holy day, too holy for almost all work (not that Diego felt like working on the most ordinary day of the year, either). But the servant's bed was empty. Lope crossed himself. 'Truly this is a day of miracles,' he murmured.
In his own little inner room, he found paper and pen and ink. He opened the shutters, to take such advantage of England's fleeting December daylight as he could, and began to write. Maybe Christmas was too holy for that, too. De Vega had no intention of asking a priest's opinion about it.
A ragged man on a street corner thrust a bowl of spiced wine at a pretty woman walking by.
'Wassail!' he called.
She looked him over, smiled, and nodded at him. 'Drinkhail!' she replied. He handed her the bowl and kissed her on the cheek. She drank, then gave him back the bowl.
'A happy New Year to you, sweetheart!' the ragged man called after her as she went on her way. He sang in a surprisingly sweet, surprisingly true baritone:
'Wassail, wassail, as white as my name,
Wassail, wassail, in snow, frost, and hail,
Wassail, wassail, that much doth avail,
Wassail, wassail, that never will fail.'
William Shakespeare tossed the fellow a penny. 'A happy New Year to you as well, sirrah.'
The ragged man doffed his cap. 'God bless you on the day, sir!' He held the bowl out to Shakespeare.
'Wassail!'
'Drinkhail!' Shakespeare replied, and drank. Returning the bowl, he added, 'I'd as lief go without the kiss.' Some Grecian, he couldn't remember who, had said the like to Alexander, and paid for it.
Marlowe would know the name.
With a chuckle, the ragged man said, 'And I'd as lief not give it you. But by my troth, sir, full many a fair lady have I bussed, and thanks to the wassail bowl I owe.' He lifted the cap from his head again. 'Give you joy of the coming year.'
'And you.' Shakespeare walked past him. A couple of blocks farther on, another man used a wassail bowl to gather coins and kisses. Shakespeare gave him a penny, too. He got in return a different song, one he hadn't heard before, and did his best to remember it. Bits of it might show up in a play years from now.
All along the crowded street, men and women wished one another happy New Year. They'd done that even back before the coming of the Armada, for the Roman tradition of beginning the year in wintertime had lingered even though, before the Spaniards came, it had formally started on March 25. As with the calendar, Isabella and Albert had changed that to conform to Spanish practice. People called 1589 the Short Year, for it had begun on March 25 and ended on December 31.
