Ruled Britannia

'Ay. Fire 'em too soon, and they fail of their purpose.' Shakespeare wondered why Decius' part excited the other man: it was neither large nor important. But then, Matt Quinn had never enjoyed much luck in the theatre. Despite more than a little talent, he'd managed to offend someone or to take sick at just the wrong moment four or five different times, killing whatever chance he might have had of becoming something more than a man who could do small roles well enough but would never get a big one. Maybe he was glad of any part he could claim.

And maybe, too, he was nothing but a loudmouthed fool. Shakespeare had known plenty of those in his years in the theatre. He did wish Lord Westmorland's Men hadn't been burdened with this one at this vital moment. Had he dared, he would have asked Burbage to sack Quinn. Glancing over towards the hired man, he shook his head. No, he didn't dare. Quinn knew too much-knew much too much. If he were sacked, if he were disgruntled, wouldn't he go straight to the Spaniards and sing his song?

Shakespeare found it all too likely.

The afternoon's play was Shakespeare's If You Like It, which the company had performed many times before. In fact, Shakespeare remembered, they'd put it on the day Marlowe had first dragged him into this conspiracy. Having done it so often, the players didn't need a lot of rehearsal to be fresh.

Shakespeare went back to his lodging as soon as he could after it was over.

When he returned to the Theatre the next morning, players and stagehands stood in little knots with their heads together. 'Here, what now?' Shakespeare called; that was no sight he cared to see

Edward, the tireman's helper, said, 'Matt Quinn was dyeing scarlet at the Bull Inn yesternight, and he-'

'At the Bull Inn?' Shakespeare interrupted. 'In Bishopsgate? Not far from mine own lodgings?'

'The same,' Edward said. 'And in's cups he did go on more than considerable from Boudicca, ay, and about the same. Will Kemp heard him, every word, as did all too many not initiate in our mystery.'

'If men were to be saved by merit, what hole in hell were hot enough for Quinn?' Shakespeare cried, clapping a hand to his forehead. 'Truly he is damned, like an ill-roasted egg, all on one side.' He started to say more, and more fiery, still, but checked himself. 'Where's Kemp? I'd have this from's own lips.'

He looked around. 'Come to that, where's the drunken roarer himself? I'd have the tale of's folly from his own lips.'

'Master Kemp's in the tiring room,' Edward replied. 'As for Master Quinn, he hath not deigned to spread himself upon our stage this day.'

'Is he drunk asleep?' Shakespeare cried. 'Or in the bought, illicit pleasure of his bed? At game a-swearing, or about some act that hath no relish of salvation in it? Then trip him, that his heels may kick at heaven, and that his soul may be damned and black as hell, whereto it goes.'

Edward spread his hands. 'I know not, Master Shakespeare. I know only, he is not here. As to the why of't. ' He shook his head.

'If he repent of his drunken antic and, thinking to save himself from the fruit thereof, if he flee to the dons. ' Shakespeare's voice trailed away, as Edward's had a moment before.

Richard Burbage came out of the tiring room just in time to hear that. 'Marry, God prevent it!' he exclaimed. 'But now I will sack that whoreson knave, Will. Speak not against it. Speak not of caution.

My mind's made up.' Having played many kings, he could sound like one at need.

'I'll say not a word,' Shakespeare answered. 'Meseems, though, amongst our other cares that's small beer.'

'Who'll take his role, an he come not?' Edward asked.

Burbage stabbed out a finger at the muscular young man. 'Will you essay it? He hath but a handful of lines, nor need you no dancing shoes with nimble soles.'

Edward gaped. Then an enormous grin stretched across his face. 'I'll do't, sir! Learn me those lines, and I'll have 'em by heart quick as boiled asparagus. Do you but show me whence I am to go on, and whither to go off, and I'm your man. God bless you for the chance!'

'What fools these youngsters be!' Will Kemp exclaimed emerging from the tiring room behind Burbage.

His shoulders shook with laughter. He glanced towards Shakespeare. 'Were you ever so all afire to make an ass of yourself before the general?'

'I? Hotter than Edward dreams of being,' Shakespeare answered. 'And now and again an ass I made of me. So do we all.'

Matthew Quinn did not come to the Theatre. Edward took his part, and managed. well enough.

Thomas Vincent had to hiss some of his lines to him the second time he came on, but he brought them out loud enough and remembered to face the audience so they could be heard. If nervous sweat darkened the armpits of his tunic, well, it was a warm day. Other players were sweating, too.

After the play, everyone made much of the tireman's assistant. Shakespeare heard Quinn's name come up only once. When it did, someone-he couldn't see who-said, 'He is to us a dead man.' Heads in the tiring room solemnly went up and down.

From the Theatre, Shakespeare had come down almost to Bishopsgate when a man stepped out of an alley and into his way on Shoreditch High Street. The fellow was about his own age, a wide-shouldered brunet, clean- shaven, with his hair cropped short, as Puritans had worn theirs before the Inquisition set out to stifle Protestantism of all stripes. His doublet might have been fine when it was new, but it hadn't been new for years. Instead of hose, he wore a sailor's striped trousers.

When he didn't move aside, Shakespeare said, 'Yes? You want somewhat of me?' He gathered himself.

If what the stranger wanted was his money, he'd get a fight first.

And then the fellow smiled, and spoke, and suddenly was a stranger no more. 'By my troth, Will,' he said, 'if you know me not, then who will?'

'Kit?' Shakespeare gaped. 'But-but-you took ship in Deptford!'

Even Marlowe's smile looked different without the fringe of beard and the long hair that had framed his face. 'Ay, I took ship in Deptford-and left the ghastly scow in Margate. Sithence I've changed my seeming and my style: call me Charles Munday, if you please.'

'I'll call you an idiot, a fond monster, a mad mooncalf dotard,' Shakespeare exclaimed. 'You could be safe away, but no! You'll have none of safety! Should any man pierce your shorn locks. '

'Where could I live but London?' Marlowe asked. 'This place hath life! All other towns are as dead beside it.'

'This place hath your death, on the gibbet or worse,' Shakespeare said. 'Where will you live? How will you eat?'

'Where, I'll keep in my own privity-what you know not, no inquisitor may rip from you,' Marlowe said, and Shakespeare was forcibly reminded of his own danger. The other poet went on, 'As for how, no man with a quick pen need-quite-fear starving, and that I have. How fares Boudicca?'

Even in mortal danger, Marlowe would speak of things better left unthought, let alone unsaid. 'I know that name not,' Shakespeare answered stonily. 'Till the day, I know it not. E'en after the day, haply shall I know it not.'

'You may be wise,' said Marlowe-who, Shakespeare realized, hadn't changed his initials with his name.

'Or, like as not, you may be but a different sort of fool, showing forth a different sort of folly.'

Thinking of all the rehearsals for Boudicca he'd watched, Shakespeare could only nod.

Lope De Vega fought to keep his face from showing how bored and how annoyed he was. How many times had Captain Baltasar GuzmA?n summoned him to his office, only to wave a sheet of paper in his face and then not let him see what it was?

But, though GuzmA?n waved this sheet of paper like any other, he startled Lope by handing it to him and saying, 'Here. This may possibly be of some interest to you, Senior Lieutenant.'

'Ah?' Lope rapidly read through it. His eyes got wider and wider with each succeeding line. He didn't realize how far his jaw had fallen till he needed to speak again and had to pull it up again. 'But this.