Ruled Britannia

Burbage boomed the words: Caratach was a fierce, blustering soldier.

'Delicate captain,

To do thee a sufficient recompense,

I'll knock thy brains out,'

Kemp replied. Marcus' talk was far bolder than his performance. He mimed gobbling down food in front of him.

'By the gods, uncle, If his valour lie in's teeth, he's the most valiant,' the boy playing Hengo jeered. He shook his fist at Will Kemp.

'Thou dar'st as well be damn'd: thou knock his brains out,

Thou skin of man! — Uncle, I will not hear this.'

'Tie up your whelp,' Kemp told Burbage, exactly as if he were a proud Roman in barbarous hands.

Peter Baker capered about in a well-acted transport of fury.

'Thou kill my uncle! Would I

Had but a sword for thy sake, thou dried dog!'

'What a mettle this little vermin carries,' Will Kemp muttered.

'Kill mine uncle!' the boy screeched.

'He shall not, child,' said Burbage, as Caratach.

'He cannot; he's a rogue,

An only eating rogue: kill my sweet uncle!

Oh, that I were a man!'

Peter Baker cried.

Will Kemp smirked.

'By this wine, which I

Will drink to Captain Junius, who loves

The Queen's most excellent Majesty's little daughter

Most sweetly and most fearfully, I will do it.'

'Uncle, I'll kill him with a great pin,' the youngster playing Hengo squeaked.

'No more, boy,' Richard Burbage began. Before he could go on and drink to Kemp's Marcus in turn, the tireman's helper started whistling the bawdy tune of which he was so fond. Instantly, Peter Baker ran off the stage. Burbage went from fierce Caratach to majestic Philip by leaning forward a little, letting his belly droop down, and dropping his voice half an octave. Will Kemp was as quick to turn, chameleonlike, into a cardinal hounding the Mahometans of southern Spain: the drunken, lecherous Roman he had been was forgotten in the wink of an eye.

By the time Lope de Vega walked into the Theatre, what had been a rehearsal for Boudicca had metamorphosed into a rehearsal for King Philip. 'Good morrow, gentles,' the Spaniard called as he walked towards the stage. He waved to Shakespeare. 'Give you good morrow, Master Will. You go on without me, is it not so?'

'A good day to you, Lieutenant,' Shakespeare answered. 'All of us must take our parts.'

'That is so.' Lope nodded. 'Tell me something, an't please you.'

'If I do know it, you shall know it,' Shakespeare said. It sounded like a promise. But it was one he had no intention of keeping if de Vega wanted to know anything he shouldn't.

All Lope said, though, was, 'Whensoever I come hither of late, some fellow in yon topmost gallery whistles the selfsame song. What is't? The music thereof quite likes me. Be there accompanying words?'

Shakespeare coughed. Richard Burbage kicked at the boards of the stage. Will Kemp guffawed. Still, Shakespeare could answer safely, so he did: 'An I mind me aright, the ditty's named a€?A Man's Yard.' '

'Not a tailor's yard, nor a clothier's yard,' Burbage added, perhaps helpfully. 'Any man's yard.'

'Ah?' Lope looked unenlightened. 'Can you sing somewhat of't for me?'

That made Shakespeare cough again, cough and hesitate. Very little made Will Kemp hesitate. He sang out in a ringing baritone:

' a€?Rede me a riddle-what is this

You hold in your hand when you piss?

It is a kind of pleasing sting,

A pricking and a pleasant thing.

It is a stiff short fleshly pole,

That fits to stop a maiden's hole;

It is Venus' wanton staying wand

That ne'er had feet, and yet can stand.' '

He would have gone on, but Lope, grinning, held up a hand. ' Basta,' he said. 'Enough; that sufficeth me.

And now, por Dios, I take your jape of a few days past. We have such songs also in Spanish.' He too began to sing. Shakespeare followed a little of it; he knew Italian and French, which were cousins to Spanish, and had picked up some of the conquerors' tongue itself during their ten years in England. From what he got of it, it was indeed of the same sort as 'A Man's Yard.'

He held up his hand in turn. 'This sport were better suited to the alehouse than the Theatre. What would you here, Lieutenant de Vega?'

'What would I?' Lope said 'Why, only to see how you fare, my friend, and how your company fares.'

He sat at the edge of the stage, his feet dangling down towards the dirt floor where the groundlings would stand come the afternoon. Shakespeare fought back a sigh. He wished the Spaniard had come for some specific reason. In that case, he would settle whatever needed settling and then leave. This way, he might stay all day, which meant no one could work on Boudicca all day.

'Every day that comes comes to decay a day's work in him,' Will Kemp said. ' 'Tis sweating labor, to bear such idleness so near the heart.'

Twitting a Spaniard could be dangerous. The dons were touchy of what they called their honor. What an Englishman would pass off with a smile might send a Spaniard into a killing rage. Or, equally, it might not.

Lope inclined his head to the clown. 'My body shall be idle whilst my wits race. Better thus than contrariwise, meseems.'

'Call you me Contrariwise?' Kemp bowed in return. 'At your service, sir.'

'In sooth, you have ever been contrary to the wise,' Burbage murmured.

The clown bowed to him, too. ' Et tu, Brute? ' he said, pronouncing the name of the noblest Roman as if it were the ordinary word brute. Burbage winced.

So did Shakespeare, but he couldn't resist piling quibble on quibble: 'Let it not be bruited about that we are aught but contrariwise to idleness.'

De Vega's gaze went from one of them to the next in turn. 'You give a better show now than when the groundlings spend their pennies.'

'I say two things to that,' Will Kemp declared. ' Imprimis, say I, piss on all those who spend their pennies here.' Shakespeare and Burbage both groaned. Lope de Vega only looked puzzled again, as