Ruled Britannia

'No, sir, that is not so. I speak English, but I have never tried to write it,' de Vega answered. 'I am working with SeA±or Shakespeare, though, on his play about his Most Catholic Majesty. The Englishman has even written a small part for me into his King Philip. That may be what you heard.'

'Yes, it could be,' de Recalde agreed, still friendly and polite. 'Would you do me the honor of letting me see what you have here so far?'

Lope didn't really want to do that. The production was still ragged, and no one knew it better than he.

But he saw no way to refuse a nobleman's request: however polite it sounded, it was really more a nobleman's order. He did feel he could warn de Recalde: 'It won't be the show you'd see in a few more days.'

'Of course. Of course.' Don Alejandro waved aside the objection. 'But I do want to see how my sweetheart's lines fit in with everybody else's.'

He gazed fondly at Catalina IbaA±ez. Lope would have sold his soul for the look she sent the nobleman in return. But then she turned one equally warm on him, as she said, 'He's given me such lovely words to use.'

'He certainly has,' Don Alejandro agreed. Because of his wealth and good looks, was he too complacent to believe Catalina might be interested in a man who had little to offer but words? If he was that complacent, did he have reason to be so?

I hope not, Lope thought. Aloud, he said, 'Take your places, everyone! We're going to start from the beginning for his Excellency. Madre de Dios! Somebody kick Diego and wake him up.'

Diego rose with a yelp. 'What was that for?' he demanded indignantly. 'I wasn't asleep. I was only resting my eyes.'

Arguing with him was more trouble than it was worth. De Vega didn't try. He just said, 'No time for rest now, lazybones. We're going to take it from the top for Don Alejandro, so he can see what we've been up to.'

'Ah, senor, since when have you wanted anybody knowing what you're up to?' Diego murmured, his eyes sliding towards Catalina IbaA±ez. Lope coughed and spluttered. Diego might make a miserable excuse for a servant, but that didn't mean he didn't know the man he served so badly. Instead of looking at Catalina himself, Lope glanced toward Alejandro de Recalde. The nobleman, fortunately, hadn't paid any attention to Diego.

'Places! Places!' Lope shouted, submerging would-be lover so playwright and director could come forth. Being all those people at once, he sometimes felt very crowded inside. Were other people also so complex? When he thought of Diego, he had his doubts. When he thought of Christopher Marlowe. I won't think of Marlowe, he told himself. He's gone, and I don't have to worry about seizing him any more. But oh, by God, how I'll miss his poetry.

De Vega's own poetry poured forth from his amateur company

He screamed, cajoled, prompted, and kept looking at Don Alejandro. Catalina's keeper plainly enjoyed El mejor mozo de EspaA±a. He laughed in all the right places, and clapped loud enough to seem a bigger audience than he was. He didn't applaud only his mistress, either, which proved him a gentleman.

When the play ended, Catalina Ibanez curtsied to him. Then, deliberately, as if she really were Queen Isabella, she curtsied to Lope, too. He bowed in return, also as if she were the Queen. Don Alejandro de Recalde laughed and cheered for them both. Catalina's eyes lit up. She smiled out at the nobleman-but somehow managed to include Lope in that smile, too.

She's trying to see how close to the wind she can sail, he realized, playing games with me right under Don Alejandro's nose. He'll kill her-and likely me, too-if he notices. But if he doesn't-oh, if he doesn't.

Lope slid closer to her. As softly as he could, he murmured, 'When can I see you? Alone?'

Had she shown surprise then, surprise or offense, he would have been a dead man. But she, unlike most of her companions here, really was an actress; Lope had had that thought before. 'Soon,' she whispered back. 'Very soon.' Her expression never changed, not a bit.

She's going to betray Don Alejandro, Lope thought. How long before she betrays me, too? His eyes traveled the length of her again. For the life of him-and he knew it might be for the life of him-he couldn't make himself worry about that.

Thomas Vincent held sheets of paper under Shakespeare's nose. ' 'Steeth, Master Vincent, mind what you do,' Shakespeare said. 'None should look on those who hath not strongest need.'

'Be you not amongst that number?' the prompter returned. 'Methought you'd fain see our scribe his work.'

'I have seen his work,' Shakespeare said. 'Had I not, I had given you the name of another.'

But he took a sheet from Vincent even so. Thomas Phelippes had had to work like a man possessed to copy out all the parts of Boudicca so quickly. However fast he'd written, though, his script hadn't suffered. It remained as clear as it had been when he'd demonstrated it in Shakespeare's ordinary.

'You could get no better,' Shakespeare said, and Thomas Vincent nodded. The poet gave back the part.

'Now then-make this disappear. Place it not where any sneaking spy nor prowling Spaniard might come upon't.'

'I am not so fond as you hold me,' the prompter said. 'None shall see it but he whose part it is-and him I shall not suffer to take it from the Theatre.'

'Marry, I hope you do not,' Shakespeare said. 'Yet will even that suffice us? For know you, we may also be done to death by slanderous tongues.'

'I know't well, sir: too well, by Jesu,' Vincent replied. 'Here I am come unto a fear of death, a terrible and unavoided danger.'

'Let only the fear thereof be unavoided, the thing itself passing over us like the Angel of Death o'er the children of Israel in Egypt. From this nettle, danger, may we pluck the flower, safety.'

Before Thomas Vincent could answer, one of the tireman's helpers who stood at the entrance to the Theatre began to whistle the tune to a particular bawdy song. The players on the stage, who'd begun learning their parts for Boudicca, switched on the instant to rehearsing the piece they would put on that afternoon. The prompter said, 'Mark you, now-in sooth, they do vanish.' He vanished himself, disappearing into the tiring room.

Shakespeare wished he too could disappear. No such luck. Instead, he walked out to greet Lieutenant de Vega, of whose arrival that bawdy song had warned. 'God give you good morrow,' he called, and made a leg at the Spaniard.

'And you, sir.' Lope swept off his hat and bowed in return. 'You are well, I hope?'

'Passing well, I thank you.' Shakespeare didn't mind exchanging courtesies with de Vega. As long as they talked in commonplaces, peril seemed far away. It wasn't; he knew that full well. But it seemed so, and even the semblance of tranquility was precious.

'How fares King Philip?' Lope asked.

'Passing well,' Shakespeare repeated, adding, 'or so I hope.' The commission he had from Don Diego Flores de ValdA©s was far safer than the one Lord Burghley had given him. Part of him hoped Lord Westmorland's Men would offer their auditors King Philip, not Boudicca. That would pluck safety from the nettle of danger. It would be a craven's safety, but safety nonetheless. Let Boudicca once see the light of day, and.

Let Boudicca once see the light of day, and God grant I get free of England, as Kit hath done, Shakespeare thought. England had lain under the Spaniards' boots for almost ten years now. Could she rise up and cast them out? If she could, why hadn't she long since?

'How fares King Philip himself?' he inquired

Lope de Vega frowned. 'Not well, I fear me: not well at all. Late word from Spain hath it he waxeth dropsical, his belly and thighs now much distended whilst his other members waste away.'

He crossed himself. Shakespeare did the same. He couldn't quite hide a shudder. He'd seen the horrid