was beginning to lose his temper, too. 'Enough of riddles, of puzzles, of conundrums,' he said. 'Do me the honor, do me the courtesy, of speaking plain.'
'I could speak no plainer-because he's fain to see you in this business.' But then, unwillingly, Marlowe made it a great deal plainer: 'Because he's fain to see you, and not me. Damn you.' He hurried off, leaning forward as if into a heavy wind.
'Oh, Kit!' Now Shakespeare knew exactly where the trouble lay. What he did not know was whether he could mend it. Marlowe had been a success in London before Shakespeare rose from performing in plays to trying to write them. Some of Shakespeare's early dramas bore Marlowe's stamp heavily upon them. If a man imitate, let him imitate the best, Shakespeare thought.
Marlowe remained popular even now. He made a living by his pen, as few could. But those who had given him first place now rated him second. For a proud man, as he surely was, that had to grate. If the
'business' had to do with the theatre, if his 'friend' wanted Shakespeare and not him. No wonder he was scowling.
'Wait!' Shakespeare called, and loped after him. 'Shall I tell this cullion that, if he be your friend, the business should be yours?'
To his surprise, the other playwright shook his head. 'Nay. He hath reason. For what he purposes, you were the better choice. I would 'twere otherwise, but the world is as it is, not as we would have it.'
'You intrigue me mightily, and perplex me, too,' Shakespeare said.
Marlowe's laugh held more bile than mirth. 'And I might say the same of you, Will. Did you tender me this plum, I'd not offer it back again. You may be sure of that.'
Shakespeare was. In a cutthroat business, Marlowe owned sharper knives than most. Unlike some, he seldom bothered pretending otherwise. After a moment's thought, Shakespeare said, 'God be praised, I am not so hungry I needs must take bread from another man's mouth.'
'Ah, dear Will. An there be a God, He might do worse than hear praises from such as you. You're a blockhead, but an honest blockhead.' Marlowe stood up on tiptoe to kiss him on the cheek. 'I'll bring the fellow to your ordinary at eventide tomorrow-I know the place you favor. Till then.' He hurried toward Bishopsgate. This time, the set of his shoulders said Shakespeare would have been unwelcome had he tried to stay up with him.
With a sigh, Shakespeare trudged down Shoreditch High Street after him. Just when a man looked like understanding Marlowe, he would do something like that. He could not praise without putting a poison sting in amongst the honey, but the kiss had been, or at least had seemed, real.
'Hurry up, hurry up,' guards at the gate called. 'Get on in, the lot of you.' They were a mixed lot, Englishmen and rawboned Irish mercenaries. The Irish soldiers looked achingly eager to kill someone, anyone. Rumor said they ate human flesh. Shakespeare didn't care to find out if rumor were true. Not meeting their fierce, falconlike gazes, he scuttled into the city.
His lodgings were in Bishopsgate Ward, not far from the wall, in a house owned by a widow who made her living by letting out most of the space. He had his own bed, but two others crowded the room where he slept. One of the men who shared the chamber, a glazier named Jack Street, had a snore that sounded like a lion's roar. The other, a lively little fellow called Peter Foster, called himself a tinker. Shakespeare suspected he was a sneakthief. He didn't foul his own nest, though; nothing had ever gone missing at the lodging house.
'You're late today, Master William,' said Jane Kendall, Shakespeare's landlady. 'By Our Lady, I hope all went well at the Theatre.' She made the sign of the cross. From things she'd said over the couple of years he'd lived there, she'd been a Catholic even before the Armada restored England's allegiance to Rome.
'Well enough, I thank you,' he replied. 'Sometimes, when talking amongst ourselves after the play, we do lose track of time.' With so many people living so close together, secrets were hard to keep. Telling a piece of the truth often proved the best way to keep all of it from coming out.
'And the house was full?' Widow Kendall persisted.
'Near enough.' Shakespeare smiled and made a leg at her, as if she were a pretty young noblewoman, not a frowzy, gray-haired tallowchandler's widow. 'Never fear. I'll have no trouble with the month's rent.'
She giggled and simpered like a young girl, too. But when she said, 'That I'm glad to hear,' her voice held nothing but truth. A lodger without his rent became in short order a former lodger out on the street.
Still, he'd pleased her, for she went on, 'There's new-brewed ale in the kitchen. Take a mug, if you care to.'
'That I will, and right gladly.' Shakespeare fitted action to word. The widow made good ale. Hopped beer, these days, was commoner than the older drink, for it soured much more slowly. He savored the mug, and, when his landlady continued to look benign, took another. Nicely warmed, he said, 'Now I'm to the ordinary for supper.'
She nodded. 'Don't forget the hour and keep scribbling till past curfew,' she warned.
'I shan't.' I hope I shan't, Shakespeare thought. Or do I? The eatery made a better place to work than the lodging house. On nights when ideas seemed to flow straight from his mind onto the page, he could and sometimes did lose track of time. He'd ducked home past patrols more than once.
From the chest by his bed, he took his second-best spoon-pewter-a couple of quills, a knife to trim them, ink, and three sheets of paper. He sometimes wished he followed a less expensive calling; each sheet cost more than a loaf of bread. He locked the chest once more, then hurried off to the ordinary around the corner. He sat down at the table with the biggest, fattest candle on it: he wanted the best light he could find for writing.
A serving woman came up to him. 'Good even, Master Will. What'll you have?'
'Hello, Kate. What's the threepenny tonight?'
'Kidney pie, and monstrous good,' she said. He nodded. She brought it to him, with a mug of beer. He dug in with the spoon, eating quickly. When he was through, he spread out his papers and got to work.
Love's Labour's Won wasn't going so well as he wished it would. He couldn't lose himself in it, and had no trouble recalling when curfew neared. After he went back to the lodging house, he got a candle of his own from his trunk-Jack Street was already snoring in the bed next to his-lit it at the hearth, and set it on a table. Then he started writing again, and kept at it till he could hold his eyes open no more. He had his story from Boccaccio, but this labor, won or lost, reminded him of the difference between a story and a finished play.
The next day, he performed again at the Theatre. He almost forgot he had a supper engagement that evening, and had to grab his best spoon-silver-and rush from his lodging house. To his relief, Christopher Marlowe and his mysterious friend hadn't got there yet. Shakespeare ordered a mug of beer and waited for them.
They came in perhaps a quarter of an hour later. The other man was no one Shakespeare had seen before: a skinny little fellow in his forties, with dark blond hair going gray and a lighter beard that didn't cover all his pockmarks. He wore spectacles, but still squinted nearsightedly. Marlowe introduced him as Thomas Phelippes. Shakespeare got up from his stool and bowed. 'Your servant, sir.'
'No, yours.' Phelippes had a high, thin, fussily precise voice.
They all shared a roast capon and bread and butter. Phelippes had little small talk. He seemed content to listen to Shakespeare and Marlowe's theatre gossip. After a while, once no one sat close enough to overhear, Shakespeare spoke directly to him: 'Kit says you may have somewhat of business for me. Of what sort is't?'
'Why, the business of England's salvation, of course,' Thomas Phelippes told him.
II
'Well, Enrique, what does Captain Guzman want to see me about today?' Lope de Vega asked.
'Ithink it has something to do with your report on If You Like It,' Guzman's servant answered. 'Just what, though, I cannot tell you.
'No.' Lope spoke with a writer's precision. 'As a
