Ruled Britannia

'If this next one is as good, it should have a bigger audience than Spanish soldiers stranded in England,'

his superior said. 'Write another good play, Senior Lieutenant, and I will do what I can to get both of them published in Spain.'

' Senor! ' Lope exclaimed. Baltasar Guzman, being both rich and well connected, could surely arrange publication as easily as he could snap his fingers. Lope's heart thudded in his chest. He'd dreamt of a chance like that, but knew dreams to be only dreams. To see that one might come true. 'I am your servant, your Excellency! And I would be honored-you have no idea how honored I would be-were you to become my patrA?n.' He realized he was babbling, but couldn't help it. What would I do, for the chance to have my plays published? Almost anything.

GuzmA?n smiled. Yes, he knew what power he wielded with such promises. 'Write well, Senior Lieutenant. Write well, and make sure the Englishman writes well, too. I cannot tell you to neglect your other duties. I wish I could, but I cannot.'

'I understand, sir.' De Vega was quick to offer sympathy to a man who offered him the immortality of print. He knew Captain Guzman was saying, Do everything I tell you to do, and then do this on your own. Normally, he would have howled about how unfair that was. But when his superior dangled the prospect of publication before him.

I am a fish, swimming in the stream. I know that tempting worm may have a hook in it. I know, but I have to bite it anyway, for oh, dear God, I am so very hungry.

Shakespeare looked at what he'd written. Slowly, he nodded. The ordinary was quiet. He had the place almost to himself, for most of the folk who'd eaten supper there had long since left for home.

He had the ordinary so much to himself, in fact, that he'd dared work on Boudicca here, which he seldom did.

And now. Ceremoniously, he inked his pen one last time and, in large letters, wrote a last word at the bottom of the page. Finis.

' 'Sblood,' he muttered in weary amazement. 'Never thought I to finish't.' Even now, he half expected the Spaniards or the English Inquisition to burst in and drag him away in irons.

But all that happened was that Kate asked, 'What said you, Master Will?'

'Naught worth hearing, believe you me.' Shakespeare folded his papers so no untoward eye might fall on them. 'I did but now set down the ending for a tragedy o'er which I've labored long.'

'Good for you, then,' the serving woman answered. 'What's it called, and when will your company perform it?'

'I know not,' he told her.

'You know not what it's called?'

'Nay,' Shakespeare said impatiently. Too late, he realized she was teasing, and made a face at her. 'I know not when we'll give it.' He avoided telling her the title. She wouldn't know what it meant-no one without Latin would-but she might remember it, and an inquisitor might be able to tear it out of her.

Shakespeare hadn't steeped himself in conspiracy his whole life long, as men like Robert Cecil and Nick Skeres had done, but he could see the advantages to keeping to himself anything that might prove dangerous if anyone else knew it.

Kate, unfortunately, saw he was holding back. 'You're telling me less than you might,' she said, more in sorrow than in accusation.

'Telling you aught is more than I should,' Shakespeare said, and then, 'Telling you that is more than I should.'

He paused, hoping she would take the point. She did. She was ignorant, but far from stupid. 'I'll ask no more, then,' she said. 'Go on. Curfew draws nigh.' She lowered her voice to add, 'God keep thee.'

'And thee,' Shakespeare answered. He rose from the stool where he'd perched most of the evening, bowed over her hand and kissed it, and left the ordinary for his lodging.

The night was foggy and dank. The moon, not quite two weeks after what the Catholic Church called Easter Sunday, was nearly new. It wouldn't rise till just before sunrise, and wouldn't pierce the mist once it did. A stranger abroad in the London night would get hopelessly lost in moments. Shakespeare intended to go back to the Widow Kendall's house more by the way the street felt under the soles of his feet and by smell than by sight.

His intention collapsed about a dozen paces outside the ordinary. Somebody came hurrying up from the direction of his lodging house. The fog muffled sound, too, so Shakespeare heard only the last few footfalls before the fellow bumped into him. 'Oof!' he said, and then, 'Have a care, an't please you!'

'Will! Is that you?' The other man's voice came out of darkness impenetrable.

Shakespeare knew it all the same. He wished he didn't. 'Kit?' he replied, apprehension making him squeak like a youth. 'Why come you hither?'

'Oh, God be praised!' Christopher Marlowe exclaimed-a sure danger sign, for when all went well he was likelier to take the Lord's name in vain than to petition Him with prayer. 'Help me, Will! Sweet Jesu, help you me! They bay at my heels, closer every minute.'

Ice ran through Shakespeare. 'Who dogs you? And for what?' Is it peculiar to you alone, or hath ruin o'erwhelmed all?

'Who?' Marlowe's voice fluttered like a candle flame in a breeze. 'The dons, that's who!'

'Mother Mary!' Shakespeare said, an oath he never would have chosen had the Spaniards not landed on English soil. He realized that later; at the moment, panic tried to rise up and choke him, so that he almost turned and fled at random through the shrouded streets of London. Something, though, made him repeat,

'Why seek they you?'

'You know I fancy boys,' Marlowe began, and some of Shakespeare's panic fell from his shoulders like a discarded cloak.

'Belike half of London knows you fancy boys,' Shakespeare answered; the other poet had never figured out the virtues inherent in simply keeping his mouth shut. But if the dons wanted him because he fancied boys.

They did. Marlowe said, 'Anthony Bacon was but the first. They'd fain rid the realm of all sodomites and ingles, and so they'll put me on the gallows if I into their hands do fall. But how could I be otherwise?

Nature that framed us of our elements, warring within our breasts for regiment, did shape me so.'

Even on the brink of dreadful death, he struggled to justify himself. That constance left Shakespeare half saddened, half amused-and altogether frightened. 'What would you of me?' he asked.

'Why, to help me fly, of course,' the other poet answered.

'And how, prithee, might I do that?' Shakespeare demanded. 'Am I Daedalus, to give thee wings?' He didn't know himself whether he used thee with Marlowe for the sake of intimacy or insult. Exasperated, he went on, 'E'en had I wings to give thee, belike thou'dst fly too near the sun, another Icarus, and plummet into the briny sea.'

'Twit me, rate me, as thou wouldst, so that thou help me,' Marlowe said. 'For in sooth, dear Will'-he laughed a ragged laugh-'where's the harm in loving boys? Quoth Jove, dandling his favorite upon his knee,

'Come, gentle Ganymede and play with me;

I love thee well, say Juno what she will.' '

Shakespeare burst out laughing. He couldn't help himself. Only Marlowe could be vain enough to recite the opening lines from one of his own plays in such an extremity. With pleasure more than a little malicious, Shakespeare used a high, thin, piping voice to give back Ganymede's reply from Dido, Queen of Carthage:

' I would have a jewel for mine ear,

And a fine brooch to put in my hat,

And then I'll hug with you an hundred times.' '

Marlowe hissed like a man trying to bear a wound bravely. 'And here, Will, I thought you never paid my