Ruled Britannia

'And you, Master Nick,' Shakespeare told him. 'I had hoped we might meet.'

'Time is ripe.' Skeres didn't explain how he knew it was, or why he thought so. Shakespeare almost asked him, but in the end held back. Skeres' answer would either be evasive or an outright lie. Smiling, the devious little man went on, 'All's well with you, sir?'

'Well enough, and my thanks for asking.' Shakespeare looked about. If Skeres could appear from nowhere, a Spanish spy might do the same. That being so, the poet named no names: 'How fares your principal?'

'Not so well. He fails, and knows himself to fail.' The corners of Nick Skeres' mouth turned down.

'Despite his brave spirit, 'tis hard, sore hard-and as hard for his son, who shall inherit the family business when God's will be done.' He too was careful of the words he spoke where anyone might hear.

'Sore hard indeed,' Shakespeare said. He had seen for himself in the house close by the Spanish barracks that the shadow of death lay over Sir William Cecil. That formidable intellect, that indomitable will-now trapped in a body ever less able to meet the demands they made on it? Shakespeare shivered as if a black cat had darted across the street in front of him. When my time comes, Lord, by Thy mercy let it come quickly. Till meeting Lord Burghley, he'd never thought to make such a prayer. But dying by inches, knowing each inch lost was lost forever. He shook his head. He feared death less than dying.

And well you might, bethinking yourself of the death the Spaniards or the Inquisition would give you. All at once, he wanted to do as Marlowe had done, to take ship and flee out of England. I would be safe in foreign parts, with no dons nor inquisitors to dog me. Speaking with Nick Skeres brought home the danger he faced.

That danger would only get worse after William Cecil died, too. Crookbacked Robert was naturally a creature of the shadows, and had thrived for years in the enormous shadow his great father cast. Once that shadow vanished, could Robert Cecil carry on in full light of day? He would have to try, but it wouldn't be easy for him.

'What seek you of me?' Skeres asked.

'Know your masters that my commission for them is complete?' Shakespeare asked in return.

Nicholas Skeres nodded. 'Yes. They know. 'Twas on that account they sent me to you. I ask again: what need you of them, or of me?'

'The names of certain men,' Shakespeare said, and explained why.

'Ah.' Skeres gave him another nod. 'You may rely on them, and on me.' He hurried away, and soon vanished into the crowd. Shakespeare went on towards Bishopsgate. He knew he could rely on the Cecils; they would do all they could for him. Relying on Nick Skeres? Shakespeare shook his head at the absurdity of the notion and kept on walking.

At the Theatre that day, Lord Westmorland's Men offered The Cobbler's Holiday, a comedy by Thomas Dekker. It was a pleasant enough piece of work, even if the plot showed a few holes. Most of the time, Shakespeare-a good cobbler of dramas himself-would have patched those holes, or found ways for Dekker to do it himself, before the play reached the stage. He hadn't had the chance here, not when he was busy with two of his own.

It might have gone off well enough even so. Such plays often did. Good jests (even more to the point, frequent jests) and spritely staging hid flaws that would have been obvious on reading the script.

Not this time. Among the groundlings were a dozen or more Oxford undergraduates, come to London on some business of their own and taking in a play before or after it. The university trained them to pick things to pieces. They jeered every flaw they found and, as undergraduates were wont to do, went from jeering flaws to jeering players. Even by the rough standards groundlings set, they were loud and obnoxious.

Richard Burbage, who played the cobbler, went on with his role as if the Oxonians did not exist. Will Kemp, ideally cast in the role of the title character's blundering, befuddled friend, had a thinner skin.

Shakespeare tried to calm him when he retreated to the tiring room during a scene in which he didn't appear: 'This too shall pass away.'

'May the lot of them pass away,' the clown growled, 'and be buried unshriven.'

'Tomorrow they'll be gone,' Shakespeare said. 'Never do they linger.'

'Nay-only the stink of 'em,' Kemp said. But Shakespeare thought he'd soothed the other man's temper before Kemp had to go out again.

And then one of the university wits noticed an inconsistency Dekker had left in the plot and shouted to Kemp: 'No, fool, you said just now she'd gone to Canterbury! What a knavish fool thou art, and the blockhead cobbler, too!' His voice was loud and shrill. The whole Theatre must have heard him. Giggles and murmurs and gasps rose from every side.

Burbage started into his next speech. Will Kemp raised a hand. Burbage stopped, startled; the gesture wasn't one they'd rehearsed. Kemp glared out at the undergraduates. 'Is it not better,' he demanded, 'to make a fool of the world as I have done, than to be fooled of the world as you scholars are?'

Their jeers brought the play to a standstill, as he must have known they would. 'Wretched puling fool!'

they shouted. 'Thou rag! Thou dishclout! Spartan dog! Superstitious, idle-headed boor!'

Kemp beamed out at them, a smile on his round face. 'Say on, say on!' he urged them. 'Ay, say on, you starveling popinjays, you abject anatomies. Be merry my lads, for coming here you have happened upon the most excellent vocation in the world for money: they come north and south to bring it to our playhouse. And for honors, who is of more report than Dick Burbage and Will Kemp?'

He bowed low. A moment later, Burbage swept off his hat and did the same. The groundlings whooped and cheered them. A couple of the university wits kept trying to mock Kemp and the other players, but most fell silent. They lived a hungry life at Oxford. Had it been otherwise, they would have paid more than a penny each to see The Cobbler's Holiday.

Will Kemp bowed again. 'Have we your leave, gentles, to proceed?'

'Ay!' the groundlings roared. The same shout came from the galleries.

'Gramercy,' he said, and turned back to Burbage. 'I will kill thee a hundred and fifty ways. Therefore tremble and depart.' As effortlessly as he'd stepped out of character, he returned to it.

'God keep thee out of my sight,' Burbage retorted, and the play went on. The Oxford undergraduates troubled it no more. Kemp had outfaced them. Shakespeare hadn't been sure anyone could, but the clown had brought it off.

Afterwards, in the tiring room, everyone made much of Kemp. He was unwontedly modest. As he cleaned greasepaint from his cheeks, he said, 'Easy to be bold, bawling out from a crowd like a calf-a moon-calf-seeking his dam's teat. But they went mild as the milk they cried for on seeing me bold in my own person, solus, from the stage.'

'Three cheers!' someone called, and they rang from the roof and walls. Will Kemp sprang to his feet and bowed, as he had after subduing the university wits. That set off fresh applause from the crowd around him.

The noise made Shakespeare's head ache. He soaped his face and splashed water on it from a basin.

The sooner he could leave the Theatre today, the happier he would be. He wanted to work on King Philip. The sooner that piece was done, the sooner he could start thinking of his own ideas once more.

They might bring less lucre than those proposed by English noble or Spanish don, but they were his.

His face was buried in a towel when someone spoke in a low voice: 'A word with you, Master Shakespeare, an I may?'

He lowered the linen towel. There stood the company's new book-keeper and prompter, the late Geoffrey Martin's replacement. Having compassed the one man's death, Shakespeare dared not ignore the other. 'What would you, Master Vincent?' he asked.

'I'd speak with you of your latest, Master Shakespeare, whilst other business distracts the company.'

Thomas Vincent nodded towards the crowd of people still hanging on Will Kemp's every word, still sniggering at his every smirk. He had the sense not to name Boudicca; as usual after a performance, not all the folk in the tiring room belonged to Lord Westmorland's Men.

And, for aught I know, we have our own spying serpent amongst us, as Satan did even in Eden, Shakespeare thought. 'I attend,' he told Vincent.

'A scribe shall make your foul papers into parts the players shall use to learn their lines,' the prompter said.

'Certes.' Shakespeare nodded. 'My character, I know, can be less than easy to make out.'