Ruled Britannia

foot soldier's brogue.

With a laugh, the Irishman said, 'And what difference might that make? 'Sdeath, sir, not a groat's worth.

A broken head'll make you shy of tormenting a gentleman afterwards, be you guilty or no.'

But Lope repeated, 'Let it go.' The gallowglasses and kerns brought over from the western island looked for excuses to fall upon the English. Considering what the English had done in Ireland over the years, they had reason for wanting revenge. But the outrage their atrocities spawned made them almost as much liability as asset for the Spaniards and for Isabella and Albert.

Lope rode into London. He still drew catcalls and curses. Inside the wall, though, Spaniards were more common, as were Englishmen who favored the Spanish cause. A man who flung, say, a ball of dung ran some real risk of being seen and noted. Catcalls Lope took in stride.

When he got back to the barracks, the stable boys clucked at the horse's sorry state. 'And what of me?'

Lope said indignantly. 'Am I a plant in a pot?'

'It could be so, senor,' one of them answered. 'And if it is, you're a well manured plant, by God and St. James.' He held his nose. His friends laughed. Had the misfortune befallen someone else, Lope might have laughed, too. Since it was his own, laughter only enraged him. He stormed off to his chamber.

There he found his servant, sleeping the sleep of the innocent and just. 'Diego!' he shouted. Diego's snores changed timbre, but not rhythm. ' Diego! ' Lope screamed. The servant muttered something vaguely placating and rolled from his back to his belly. Lope shook him like a man trying to shake fleas out of a doublet.

Diego's eyes opened. 'Oh, buenos dias, senor,' he said. 'Is it an earthquake?'

'If there were an earthquake, it would swallow you as the whale swallowed Jonah,' Lope said furiously.

'And do you know what? Do you know what, you son of a debauched sloth?'

His servant didn't want to answer, but saw he had no choice. 'What, senor?' he quavered.

'If there were an earthquake, it would swallow you as the whale swallowed Jonah, and you wouldn't even know it! ' Lope bellowed. 'Scotland-'

That got Diego's attention, where nothing up till then really had. 'Not Scotland, senor, I beg you,' he broke in. 'The Scots are even worse than the Irish, from all I hear. May the holy Mother of God turn her back on me if I lie. They cook blood in a sheep's stomach and call it supper, and some say it is the blood of men '

'Scotland, I was going to say, is too good for you,' de Vega snarled. He had the satisfaction of watching Diego quail, a satisfaction marred when his servant yawned in the midst of cringing. 'By God, Diego, if you fall asleep now I'll murder you in your bed. Do you think I'm lying? Do you want to find out if I'm lying?'

'No, senor. All I want to do is. ' Diego stopped, looking even more miserable than he had. He'd undoubtedly been about to say, All I want to do is go back to sleep. He wasn't very bright, but he could see that that would land him in even more trouble than he'd already found. A querulous whine crept into his voice as he went on, 'I thought you'd stay at that damned Theatre a lot longer than you did.'

'And so?' Lope said. 'And so? Because I'm not here, does that mean you get to lie there like a salt cod?

Why weren't you blacking my boots? Why weren't you mending my shirts? Why weren't you keeping your ears open for anything that might be to my advantage, the way Captain Guzman's Enrique does?'

Why does that vain little thrip of a Baltasar GuzmA?n get a prince among servants, while I'm stuck with a donkey, and a dead donkey at that?

Diego said something inflammatory and scandalous about exactly how intimate Enrique and Captain GuzmA?n were. 'How would you know that?' Lope jeered. 'When have you been awake to see them?'

'It's true, senor,' Diego answered. 'Everybody says so.'

Lecturing his servant on what 'everybody said' was worth struck de Vega as a waste of breath. But his pause was thoughtful for more reasons than that. If Guzman really did prove a marican, a sodomite, he might lose his position. He would, in fact, if he brought scandal to himself or to the Spanish occupiers as a group. And who would benefit if Baltasar GuzmA?n fell? I would, Lope thought. People can call me a great many things, but a sodomite? Never!

Diego's narrow little eyes glittered nastily. 'Are you thinking what I'm thinking?'

'No,' Lope said, not without well-concealed regret. 'I am thinking that maybe you would do better asleep after all. When you're awake, your mind goes from the chamber pot to the sewage ditch. For I happen to know Captain GuzmA?n had a mistress till they quarreled a few months ago.'

'And why would they quarrel?' Diego asked. 'If he'd sooner-'

' A?Basta! ' Lope said. 'And not just enough but too much. Get up. Get out of here. Do what you're supposed to do. Then, once you've done that-which will include cleaning the clothes I have on, for the English threw filth at me and my horse today-once you've done that, I say, you'll have earned your rest, and you'll enjoy it more.'

His servant looked highly dubious. De Vega supposed he had some reason. The only way he could enjoy his rest more would be to make love without waking up. Diego also thought about making some remark on the state of Lope's clothes. Again, he was wise to think twice. Grumbling under his breath, he did at last get out of bed.

Lope pulled off his boots, shed his stinking netherstocks and hose, and got out of his befouled doublet.

He changed quickly; the room was cold. And then he went off to make the day's report to Captain Guzman. 'Damn you, Diego,' he muttered under his breath as he went. No matter what everybody said about GuzmA?n-if everybody said anything about him-Lope still had to deal with him. That was hard enough already, and would be harder still if de Vega watched his superior out of the corner of his eye, looking for signs he might be a sodomite.

Before he got to Guzman's office, he ran into Enrique. Or had Enrique contrived to run into him? Eyes wide with excitement behind the lenses of his spectacles, Captain Guzman's servant said, 'Tell me at once, Senior Lieutenant-what is it like, shaping a play with SeA±or Shakespeare?'

'I don't shape here,' Lope said, remembering he might have to watch Enrique out of the corner of his eye, too. 'I only have some lumber to sell. Shakespeare is the carpenter. He cuts and carves and nails things together. He'll do it very well, too, I think.'

'He has a mind of his own?' Enrique asked.

' Por Dios, ' Lope exclaimed, and the clever young servant laughed. 'You can think it's funny,' de Vega told him. 'You don't have to work with the Englishman.'

Enrique sighed. 'Oh, but I wish I did!'

'Is your master in?' Lope asked.

'Yes, I think so,' Enrique said. 'He was at a. friend's house last night, but he said before he left that he'd try to return in good time.'

He said amiga, not amigo: the 'friend' was of the feminine persuasion. So much for what everybody says, Lope thought. 'Have you seen her?' he asked. 'Is she pretty?'

'I should hope so, senor!' Enrique said enthusiastically. 'A face like an angel's, and tits out to here.' He held a hand an improbable distance in front of his chest.

So much indeed for what everybody says, de Vega thought. When he walked into Baltasar GuzmA?n's office, the young captain looked like a cat that had just fallen into a bowl of cream. And when GuzmA?n asked, 'What's the latest, Senior Lieutenant?' he didn't sound as if he'd bite Lope's head off if he didn't like the answer. He must have had a night to remember.

I wish I were in love again. I probably will be soon, but I'm not now, and I miss it. Sighing, de Vega summarized his session with Shakespeare. He also summarized the English attitude toward lone Spaniards on horseback: 'Only my good luck they chose to throw more dung than stones. I might not have made it back if they'd gone the other way.'

Captain Guzman said, 'I'm glad you're safe, de Vega. You're a valuable man.' While Lope was still gaping, wondering if he'd heard straight, his superior added, 'And I'm glad things are going so well with the English poet.