Ruled Britannia

bloating of dropsy, seen it rob its victims of life an inch at a time. They'd had to press a board against one luckless player's belly to help him make water, as if they were squeezing the juice from grapes in a wine press. Next to that, the swift certainty of the gallows seemed a mercy. But you'd have no swift end, not now.

'Best you finish the play, quick as you might,' de Vega told him. 'Soon enough-all too soon-the company will show it forth.'

'It lacks but little,' Shakespeare said.

'Glad I am to hear you say so,' the Spaniard said. 'As soon as all the parts be finished, let your prompter give them to the scribes, that they might make fair copies of them for the players to learn by heart.'

'Certes, your honor. Just as you say, so shall it be.' Now Shakespeare bowed. 'You know well the customary usages of a theatre not your own.'

He put more sarcasm into that than perhaps he should have. De Vega, fortunately, did not seem to notice. He answered, 'They are not so different from those of Spain. Your prompter is new to his work, not so?'

'Indeed, his predecessor having. died.' Guilt stabbed at Shakespeare. He did his best not to show it.

De Vega here might one day talk to Constable Strawberry, and Strawberry, in his own plodding way, had already connected Shakespeare and Ingram Frizer, though he didn't quite know what connections he'd made.

But, for now, Lope de Vega's attention focused on King Philip and the problems involved in producing it. 'An he have trouble finding scribes fit for the matter, I ken a man who'd suit it.'

'Ah?' Shakespeare said: the most noncommittal noise he could make.

Lope nodded. 'Ay, sir: an Englishman already in the employ of Don Diego, and thus acquainted with all you purpose here. I have seen his writing, and know him to have an excellent character, most legible. He is called Thomas. ah. Phelippes.'

He pronounced the name in the Spanish manner, as if it had three syllables. That kept Shakespeare from recognizing it for a moment. When he did, he felt as if a thunderbolt had crashed to earth at his feet. Lope knew Phelippes well enough to know what sort of scribe he made? Did the Spanish officer have a fair copy of Boudicca? Had he got it before Thomas Vincent got his?

Whom may I trust? Shakespeare wondered dizzily. Vincent? Phelippes? Nick Skeres? Lord Burghley? Anyone in all the world? The deeper into the plot he sank, the closer he came to the moment when the company would offer one play or the other, the more certain he became that no one had any business ever trusting anyone else.

'What think you, senor?' Lope asked when Shakespeare didn't answer right away.

'Master Vincent, meseems, hath already scribes enough for the work,' Shakespeare said, picking his words with the greatest of care. 'You were wiser, though, to speak to him in this matter than to me. He is quite out of countenance with my character, reckoning it to show mine own bad character.'

The Spanish officer chuckled at his feeble wordplay, not knowing how hard Shakespeare was working to distract him and to conceal his own alarm. 'As you suggest, so shall I do,' de Vega said. 'Shall I find him in the tiring room?'

'I know not,' Shakespeare replied, hoping Vincent had had the sense, and the time, to hide the fair copy-the fair copy Thomas Phelippes had written out! — of Boudicca.

'I'll seek him there,' Lope said, and off he went before Shakespeare could try to delay him any more. No howls of fright or fury came from behind the stage, so Shakespeare dared hope the prompter had proved prompt enough in concealing the dangerous play.

Shakespeare had only a small part in the day's production, Marlowe's Caligula. The poet was fled, but his plays lived on. Shakespeare would have been glad with more to do; he might have worried less. As things were, he'd never been so glad to escape the Theatre once the show was done.

He hadn't gone far towards London before Richard Burbage fell into step with him. 'Give you good even,' the other player said, and then, 'It went right well, methought.'

He'd played the title role, and milked it for all it was worth. Still, Shakespeare nodded; as Marlowe had written it, the role was worth milking. 'This was the frightfullest Roman of them all,' Shakespeare said.

'In sooth, he is a choice bit of work,' Burbage said. 'And, in sooth, could we but show more of what he did, he'd seem frightfuller yet.'

'It wonders me the Master of the Revels gave Kit leave to present e'en as much as the play offers,'

Shakespeare said.

'Come the day, we'll show more than Sir Edmund wots of,' Burbage observed.

'Come the day,' Shakespeare echoed. 'And, by what the Spaniard saith, the day comes soon: Philip hath declined further.' He walked along for a few paces, then added, 'Or, come the day, we'll give the auditors King Philip, and all will weep for fallen glory.'

Burbage was also silent for a little while. 'Peradventure we will,' he said at last. 'But ere I sleep each night, I pray God they'll see the other.' Here in Shoreditch High Street, he named no names. Who could tell which jade or ragamuffin might take some incautious word to the dons or the English Inquisition?

'Well, Dick, your prayer, at least, is to the purpose,' Shakespeare said wearily. 'When I petition the Lord, it is that He let this cup pass from me. I fear me, though, He hears me not.' He threw his hands in the air. ' 'Swounds, why fled I not this madness or ever it laid hold of me?'

'The heart hath its reasons, whereof reason knoweth naught,' Burbage said.

Shakespeare stopped in surprise. 'That is well said. Is't your own?' When Burbage nodded, Shakespeare set a hand on his shoulder. 'When next Will Kemp assails you as being but the mouthpiece for other men, cast defiance in's teeth.'

'So I would, and so I will,' the other player answered. 'But gramercy for your courtesy.'

'Your servant, sir,' Shakespeare said. 'Would I were penning some trifling comedy of lovers loving will they, nill they; I'd engraft your line therein fast as ever I could.' He sighed. 'Shall I ever again labor over aught so sweet and simple?'

'But if all go well. ' Burbage said.

'Perhaps,' Shakespeare said, and said no more. He didn't want his hopes to rise too high. They would only have further to fall.

Burbage might have sensed as much. Instead of going on with the argument, he pointed ahead.

'Bishopsgate draws nigh. Spring at last being arrived, it likes me having daylight left once we've strutted and fretted our two hours upon the stage.'

'Why, it doth like me as well,' Shakespeare said in surprise. He clapped a hand to his forehead. 'By my troth, Dick, I've scarce noted proud-pied April, dressed in all his trim, putting a spirit of youth in everything. Goose quill and paper have compassed round my life.'

'Belike, for it's April no moe,' Burbage told him. 'These are May's new-fangled shows, and far from the best of 'em.'

'May?' Shakespeare cried. 'Surely not! Surely they'd have decked the streets with greenery, as is the custom, and burnt bonfires, and run up maypoles for that they might dance round 'em.'

'Surely they would have. Surely they did. Surely you never marked it.' Richard Burbage eyed him with amused pity.

'Wait!' Shakespeare snapped his fingers. 'I mind me we gave the groundlings The Taming of the Shrew on the day. There! D'you see? I had some knowledge of it after all.' That felt very important to him just then.

Burbage's expression changed not a jot. 'And so we did. But why know you of it? Only for that it came to pass within the Theatre's bourne. Otherwise. ' He shook his head.

As usual, Irishmen with long, hungry faces and fiery eyes stood guard at Bishopsgate. The gallowglasses glowered at Shakespeare and Burbage: the two players were big enough and young enough to seem dangerous no matter how mildly they behaved. One of the guards said something in his own musical language, of which Shakespeare understood not a word. Another started to draw his sword. But their sergeant-distinguishable only because he was a few years older and a little more scarred-shook his head. He waved the Englishmen into London,