Ruled Britannia

silver paint. 'With feather plumes, Master Will, they serve passing well for Roman casques,' the tireman said. 'See you how the cheek pieces I've added help give 'em the seeming of antiquity?'

Shakespeare reached out and touched one of those cheek pieces. It was, as he'd expected, nothing but cut tin, hardly thicker than a leaf of paper. That didn't matter. It would look all right to the audience.

What the players wore and what the groundlings saw-or imagined they saw-were two very different things. He knew that. No one who'd ever gone on up on stage could help knowing it. Still.

'Can we not make it plainer who these Romans are, whom they personate?' he inquired.

Hungerford frowned. 'They are Romans, not so?' He scratched his head.

'Ay, certes, they are Romans.' Shakespeare drummed the fingers of his right hand on his hose. The tireman, who dealt in things, cared nothing for symbols. 'But bethink you, Master Jack. They are Romans, yes. They are invaders, come to Britain to conquer her, to change for their own her ancient and ancestral usages. In the doing, they have cast down a Queen. ' How many examples would he have to string together? How long before Jack Hungerford saw where he aimed? Would the tireman ever see it?

Scratching again, this time at the side of his chin, Hungerford spoke in thoughtful tones: 'They fair put you in mind o' the dons, not so?'

'Even so, Master Jack! Even so!' Shakespeare wanted to kiss him. Hungerford had seen where he was going after all. 'Can you devise somewhat wherewith they have at once the seeming of Romans and Spaniards both?'

'Well. I have me these morions here,' Hungerford said doubtfully, pointing to a row of Spanish-style helmets below the 'Roman' ones. 'Haply I might make shift to give 'em a crest of feathers or horsehair, here along the comb, so. ' He ran his finger from the front of a morion to the back to show what he meant.

'Yes! Most excellent indeed!' Shakespeare exclaimed. 'By my troth, Master Jack, the very thing. At times, now, the Roman soldiery will be seen armored. Can this also call to mind the dons' equipage?'

'Oh, yes. Naught simpler there.' Now that the tireman had the bit between his teeth, he could run. 'A good English back-and-breast is like unto that which the Spaniards wear. An eagle daubed on the breast thereof should show the armor is purposed to stand for a Roman's, an't please you.'

'Indeed-it pleases me greatly.' Shakespeare nodded. 'Now, one thing more. What have we here of queenly regalia?'

'Queenly.?' Even with bit between his teeth, Hungerford didn't change gaits quickly; he needed a moment to shift his thoughts from one path to another. But then he snapped his fingers. 'Ah! I follow! For the lad who is to play. ' He snapped his fingers again, this time in annoyance. 'Beshrew me if I recall the name.'

'Boudicca,' Shakespeare said patiently. How many people these days knew of the Queen of the Iceni, defeated and dead more than fifteen hundred years? Only those who'd fought through the Annals.

Maybe his tragedy would change that. Then again, maybe it would never take the stage. But he had to go on as if he thought it would.

'Boudicca,' Hungerford echoed. 'A heathen appellation, if ever such there be. Well, what would you in aid of the garb purposed for that part, Master Will?'

'That it resemble a certain other deposed Queen's, as close as may be,' Shakespeare answered.

He would not say the name. He didn't know why not. This conversation was already so manifestly treasonous, the name couldn't make it worse. But no one ever said it in today's England without a shiver of fear, without wondering who might be listening. He wondered if any girl child born after the summer of 1588 bore it. He had his doubts. He knew he wouldn't have given it to a little girl, not in an England ruled by Isabella and Albert. Maybe some folk were braver than he. No: certainly some folk were braver than he. But were any that brave, or that reckless?

Again, the tireman needed a heartbeat or two to catch up with him. 'A certain other.?' Hungerford said, and then nodded. 'Oh. Elizab. ' He stopped. He would not say all of the name, either. His eyes widened. 'I take your drift. Whatsoever we may lack, I can get for barter from other companies. They need not know our veritable intent, only that it is to garb a Queen.'

'You may say Queen Mary, an't please you,' Shakespeare said. 'She hath some small part in King Philip.'

'As she had some small part in King Philip his life,' said Hungerford, who was old enough to remember when Mary and Philip had briefly shared the English throne. He nodded. 'Ay, that will suit well enough, should any presume to make inquiry. Are you fain to have me give him a red wig and powder his face white, as was. her custom for some years?'

'However your wit may take you,' Shakespeare answered. 'The greater the semblance, though, the more likely the play to seize the auditors.'

'Then I'll do't,' Hungerford said.

'And one thing more, Master Jack,' Shakespeare said earnestly. 'Come what may, suffer not Lieutenant de Vega to learn aught of what's afoot, else all's ruined.'

'You need not tell me that,' the tireman replied. 'D'you take more for a witling? A soft and dull-eyed fool?'

The poet shook his head. 'By no means, sir. But the enterprise hath such weight and urgency, I'd liefer warn without need than need without giving warning. 'Swounds, I meant no offense, and cry your pardon for any I gave.'

Hungerford smiled. 'Rest easy. I am not one to hold anger to his inward self, cherishing the warmth like a man in January new-come to hearth and home. And you speak sooth: 'tis no game we play, unless you'd style thus dicing o'er the fate of kingdoms.'

Shakespeare sighed with relief. He still had no guarantee Boudicca would come off well, or that it would do as Sir William Cecil hoped and help rouse England against the Spanish occupiers. He had no guarantee the play would even appear on stage. (That gave rise to a new worry. If Boudicca didn't appear, if King Philip did, how could he reclaim the written parts? Any of those, should a Spaniard see it, would be plenty to get him dragged to Tower Hill, hanged, cut down, drawn, quartered, and burnt. His danger didn't end if Boudicca failed to play. If anything, it got worse.) But if his tragedy of the British Queen did reach the stage, Jack Hungerford would do everything in his power to make it look the way it should. And the tireman took it seriously. He understood the stakes for which they were playing.

Haply I make a better poet than did Kit Marlowe, Shakespeare thought. But in all else he were better suited than I, being an intriguer and intelligencer born. 'O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me.'

He didn't realize he'd said that aloud till Hungerford completed the quotation for him: 'Nevertheless, not as I will, but as Thou wilt.'

Was this God's will? Shakespeare checked himself. That was the wrong question. Everything, surely, was God's will. But was it God's will that the uprising should go forward and succeed?

How can I know? Shakespeare sighed again, on a very different note. Almost groaning, he said

, 'O God! That one might read the book of fate and see the revolution of the times.'

'What fates impose, that men must needs abide,' Hungerford said.

Shakespeare's nod was half glum, half exalted. 'We have thrown our gloves to death himself, that there's no maculation in our hearts. If it be otherwise, if the canker of treason dwell in someone's bosom, we are all undone.'

'Hanging and wiving go by destiny,' the tireman said, a homely saw that would have made Shakespeare happier had his own marriage been better.

He left the tiring room and went out on stage, where rehearsal for Boudicca went on. Burbage, as Boudicca's brother-in-law Caratach, traded barbs with Will Kemp, who played Marcus, a Roman soldier now captured by the Iceni, and with Peter Baker, the boy playing Caratach's nephew, Hengo.

'Fill 'em more wine; give 'em full bowls.-

Which of you all now, in recompense of this good,

Dare but give me a sound knock in the battle?'