Ruled Britannia

this, your Excellency. this is from a printer. A printer in Madrid. In. in the capital.' Realizing he was babbling, he fell silent again.

Captain Guzmnn nodded. 'Yes, a printer,' he said. 'I told you that, if El mejor mozo de Espana succeeded, I would send it and La dama boba back to Spain, to put them before the civilized world. El mejor mozo de Espana won praise from no less than the daughter of his Most Catholic Majesty. I keep my promises.'

'This says. ' De Vega made himself stop starting and stopping every few words. 'This says the printer likes the plays-he admires them, he says-and that he would be delighted and honored to put them into print. Delighted and honored! God and the holy Virgin and all the saints bless you, your Excellency! I am going to be in print! In print, at last! I shall be remembered forever!'

So many plays died with their creators. Once he was there no more, who cared about, who remembered, the children of his imagination? They died with him. As worms ate him, oblivion swallowed him. But to leave behind work in print. A hundred years from this moment, or two hundred, or four hundred, someone could take a book of his plays off the shelf, leaf through it, and decide to put on La dama boba. And when the lady nitwit went up on stage, Lope would live again.

With a sardonic smile, Captain GuzmA?n returned him to the present: 'While you are here and merely mortal, Senior Lieutenant, do you recall any mention of Sir William Cecil at the Theatre?'

'Of Lord Burghley? No, your Excellency,' Lope answered. 'I don't remember ever hearing his name there, though I have heard he's dying.'

'He is nearly dead. He is older than Philip, and fails faster. I never did understand why his Most Catholic Majesty spared him after the conquest, but that was his will. Maybe he respected a worthy foe; Burghley towered above the other men, the little men, who advised Elizabeth. Every Spanish officer I know is sure he had one last damnable plot in him, but no one ever sniffed it out.'

'Over in Westminster, Don Diego said much the same thing, sir,' de Vega said. 'But I have seen nothing in the Theatre to make me think Lord Westmorland's Men involved.'

'Not the murder of Geoffrey Martin?' Guzman asked.

'No, sir,' Lope replied. 'For all that the mad English constable in Shoreditch mumbles about someone knowing someone who knows someone else-I think that's what he mumbles, for he speaks in riddles (often, I believe, riddles to himself)-he has no proof, none whatever, Martin's murder was anything but an ordinary knifing in an ordinary robbery.'

'It could be.' GuzmA?n's voice was studiously noncommittal. 'Yes, it could be. But, in that case, what of the murder of Matthew Quinn?'

'The murder of-?' That brought Lope up short. 'But I saw this Quinn alive and rehearsing only a few days, a very few days, ago. He's dead? When? How?'

'As for when, by the smell and the other signs, only a few days ago-I presume after you saw him last.'

GuzmA?n had a wit so dry, Lope had taken longer than he should have to notice it was there at all. Now he went on, 'As for how. ' He drew a finger across his throat.

'Where did they find him?' de Vega asked.

'In an alley behind and down the street from a tavern called the Bull Inn, in Bishopsgate,' Baltasar GuzmA?n replied. 'It is not far from SeA±or Shakespeare's lodgings, whatever that may mean. The body was found without a purse, without a penny, so this may have been a simple robbery. It may-but, then again, it may not.'

'Yes.' Lope plucked at his neat little chin beard. 'One murder in a company of actors-that means nothing. I wouldn't mind murdering one actor in that company myself. But two? Two murders from the same small group do make you wonder. Was Quinn doing anything out of the way in this tavern?'

GuzmA?n favored him with an approving glance. He didn't get that many from his superior, and basked in this one. The nobleman said, 'Now that, Senior Lieutenant, that is a very interesting question. What I wish we had is an interesting answer. We have no answer at all. No one we can find who was in the tavern that night admits to remembering Quinn at all. No one.'

'Not even the taverner?' Lope scowled. 'Quinn liked to hear himself talk, and he wore an ill-fitting periwig. He would not be easy to forget.'

'Someone had stolen the periwig, too, by the time the body was found,' Captain GuzmA?n remarked.

Lope made a small, disgusted noise. GuzmA?n nodded and continued, 'No, not even the taverner. He says Quinn wasn't a regular and he never wastes much time with people who aren't regulars. People who are regulars swear he is telling the truth.'

'Would they say the same if we questioned them-properly?' De Vega had no trouble contemplating torture, but didn't care to come right out and name it.

'Another interesting question. Maybe, for that one, we'll find an answer,' Baltasar GuzmA?n replied.

'Meanwhile, though, I want you to work with this Constable Strawberry, who has been trying to catch whoever killed Geoffrey Martin. Maybe he can help us here, if these two killings are connected.'

'Yes, your Excellency,' Lope said dutifully. But he couldn't help heaving a sigh. 'I don't much like this Englishman, though, and I don't think he's very bright.'

'As may be-he is the man on the spot, and he has been working on the matter since Martin died,'

Guzman said. 'Martin was a good Catholic man. His killing should not go unpunished.'

'Was Quinn a good Catholic man?' Lope asked.

Looking unhappy, Captain Guzman shook his head. 'No, or no one thinks so. Before we came here, he was a Protestant. He went to Mass afterwards, but no one ever thought he was pious.'

'No link there, then,' Lope said. GuzmA?n sent him a warning look. He hastily added, 'But I'll go find out if there are any others.'

Feeling put upon, he rode up to Shoreditch. When he got there, one of the watchmen who assisted the constable told him Strawberry was out on rounds. The fellow had only a vague idea of where Strawberry might be found. I could be at the Theatre, Lope thought resentfully, not chasing down this slow-witted Englishman who isn't likely to know much anyway.

He finally came upon Walter Strawberry marching up a muddy street, swinging a truncheon by its leather thong. 'Give you good day, Constable,' he called, hurrying towards the other man.

'Why, Master de Vega, as I live and expire,' Strawberry said, tipping his hat. 'Greetings and palpitations to you, sir.'

'Er-thank you,' Lope said. Listening to the constable always reminded him English was a foreign language. 'I have just learned of the death of the player, Matthew Quinn.'

'He died the death, indeed. Murther. Murther most foul, and robbery of's periwig-another felony besides,' Strawberry said. 'Mind you, I am factitious of who the miscegenate was.'

'Are you?' Lope said. Constable Strawberry solemnly nodded. De Vega asked, 'Think you this slaying hath connection to that of Geoffrey Martin?'

'Connection? Connection?' the Englishman said. 'Why, man, if some low cove had not connection with Geoff Martin, and now with Quinn, they'd not be slain. Will you tell me I'm wrong?' He stuck out his jaw in challenge.

'Meseems you have mistook me,' Lope said. 'Be there in your view connection betwixt Masters Martin and Quinn?'

'Give me leave to doubt it, sir. They were both honest men, or honest enough, and with such vice square against all conjunctions Biblical-'

De Vega muttered a quick Pater noster. He hoped God was listening. Trying to get through to Walter Strawberry was like going to the dentist, save that Strawberry drew sense rather than teeth. 'Let me try once more,' Lope said with what he reckoned commendable calm. 'Think you the same man did slay these twain?'

'Ay, belike,' the constable said-at last, a definite answer.

Lope felt like cheering. 'And who was this man?'

'Why, the murtherer, assuredly.' Strawberry stared at him. 'Who else might he be?'

Another Pater noster did not suffice de Vega. Neither did crossing himself. Through clenched teeth, he asked, 'What calls he himself? — this man you reckon the murtherer, I mean.'