Ruled Britannia

done, as you will have seen'-he couldn't resist the gibe, for he remained unsure who Phelippes'

true master was-'I dared hope I might pursue a notion no one set me.'

'Be ever at enmity with cozening hope; he is a flatterer,' Phelippes said. Shakespeare glared at him.

Wasted effort: he gave no more heed than a snake to the frantic stares of a bird it swallowed. He went on, 'Come away with me. Someone would fain take counsel with you.'

'Someone?' Shakespeare echoed. Phelippes nodded once more. 'Who?' the poet asked. The other man cocked his head to one side. The dancing candle flame filled his spectacle lenses with light and lent him for a moment an inhuman cast of feature. Shakespeare mouthed Robert Cecil's name. Phelippes gave him yet another nod. Knowing he couldn't refuse, Shakespeare did eat quickly. When he'd finished the meat and the parsnips, he took up his writing tools and got to his feet. 'Lead on, Master Phelippes.'

Seeing him head for the door instead of settling down to write, Kate called after him in surprise and alarm: 'Is all well, Will?'

'Well enough, or so I hope,' he answered. That wouldn't reassure her. He hoped it would unsettle Phelippes. If anything happened to him, the alarm would spread quickly. The other question was, did Phelippes-did Robert Cecil-care? Shakespeare had to believe they did. If they would kill him when he'd done them no harm, when he'd labored long and hard to aid their cause, how were they better than the dons?

Outside the ordinary, darkness hung thick, almost palpable. As August moved towards September, nights were getting longer again, and colder, too. When Shakespeare sighed, he could see the vapor of his own breath. Somewhere high overhead, an owl hooted. Tiny skitterings from close by the walls said rats and mice went about their business even so.

'Whither away?' Shakespeare asked again. In that smothering dark, he felt as much a skulker as the skittering vermin.

Instead of answering with words, Thomas Phelippes set off at a brisk pace. Can I endure this arrogance? And from this fellow? Sadly, Shakespeare knew he had no choice. He followed.

He wished he had Mommet's eyes. That would have kept him from stepping in several noxious piles and puddles. By Phelippes' low-voiced-and sometimes not so low-voiced-curses, he knew the other man had the same trouble. Somehow, that didn't console him.

Phelippes led him south and west. He didn't realize how far he'd come till he saw the great bulk of St.

Paul's heaving itself up into the sky, blocking out the stars. Before long, Phelippes knocked at the door to a house that seemed neither rich nor poor. The knock had a curious rhythm to it: a code, Shakespeare thought. The door opened. 'In-make haste!' someone said. Phelippes ducked inside.

Shakespeare followed once more. He wished he could turn and flee instead. If he did, though, he was grimly certain he would meet Ingram Frizer in the ruffian's professional capacity. Would Frizer smile as he drove the knife home? Shakespeare would not have bet against it.

Inside, light blazed from candles and torches and a leaping fire in the hearth, a fire better suited to winter than summer. Robert Cecil sat in a chair not far from the flames; perhaps his back pained him when he used a stool like most men. 'Give you good evening, Master Shakespeare,' he said, dipping his head in what was almost but not quite a seated bow.

'And to you, sir,' Shakespeare replied. 'My deepest condolement on your loss.'

Lord Burghley's son waved him to a stool. As he perched there, nervous as a bird, the younger Cecil said, ' 'Tis the kingdom should condole, not I. My father passed from us full of years, but England's savior died untimely. What he cannot now do, I needs must essay. How stand we in respect of your part therein?'

'You will know the play is writ,' Shakespeare said, and Robert Cecil nodded. The poet went on, 'You will also know Constable Strawberry sniffs after him who murthered both Geoff Martin and, now, Matthew Quinn.'

Cecil nodded again. Thomas Phelippes said, 'We merit our freedom not, an such a bedlam brainsick counterfeit module may make to totter the fabric of our designs.'

'What Strawberry solus may not do, peradventure with confederates he may,' Shakespeare said. 'Belike you will know he concerts with Lieutenant de Vega.'

Again, Phelippes was the one who spoke up: 'And is not de Vega well and truly cozened? Does he not believe me friend to his enterprise? Can such a worthless post be feared?'

'Any man opposing us may be feared,' said Shakespeare, who'd learned more about fear since the previous autumn than he ever wanted to know. He glanced towards Robert Cecil. Cecil kept his own counsel. He would have been a dangerous man in a game of cards; Shakespeare had no idea what he was thinking. He dared hope Cecil was thinking something, and reminded himself Lord Burghley had had a good opinion of his crookbacked son.

A servant brought in goblets of Sherris-sack and sugar to sweeten it. Everyone fell silent till the man bowed his way out of the room. Then, sipping the wine, Cecil asked, 'And should I know aught else?'

Shakespeare started to shake his head, as Robert Cecil plainly expected him to do. But then he checked the motion. 'Haply you should, your Honor.'

One of Cecil's eyebrows rose, startlingly dark against the pallid skin of his forehead. His long, thin fingers tightened on the goblet's stem. But his voice showed nothing as he said, 'Tell it me, then.'

'As you know of Walter Strawberry, as you know he treats with the don, so, belike, you will know Kit Marlowe is returned to London.'

That loosed a hawk amongst the pigeons. Robert Cecil started so violently, sugared sack slopped out of his goblet and onto the slashed black velvet of his doublet. 'Why, thou infinite and endless liar!' Thomas Phelippes burst out.

'By my troth, sir, I am no such creature, and be damned to thine ignorant, oppressive arrogance for naming me one,' Shakespeare answered angrily.

Before Phelippes could loose some hot retort of his own, Robert Cecil help up a hand. The gesture, though spare, was commanding; Phelippes fell silent at once. Shakespeare just had time to note that before the younger Cecil's gaze fell full on him. It was not a magisterial stare, such as Sir William had had.

But its blazing intensity made it at least as arresting. Robert Cecil said, 'Tell me at once-at once! — how you know this to be true.'

'How, sir? Because I have seen him and spoke with him,' Shakespeare said. 'He hath cropped his hair close to his head and shaved his beard, so that a man might pass him in the street and know him not; but his voice is not so easily disguised.'

'But he went to sea at Deptford,' Thomas Phelippes said.

'In sooth: as I told him,' Shakespeare replied. 'And, quotha, he came ashore at Margate, for that he might hie back to London.'

'Damnation take him,' Phelippes said. 'He were better gone. For he will make himself known. He can no more help spewing words than a malmsey-nose sot can help spewing wine.'

'Do the Spaniards seize him, he dies the death,' Robert Cecil said, 'the which he must know.'

'He doth know it indeed,' Shakespeare said. 'But he cannot avoid what plays out here, no more than can a jackdaw spying some trifling shiny thing serving to bait a snare.'

Grimly, Cecil said, 'A jackdaw snares but itself: until it be snared, and tamed, and taught, it hath no knowledge of human speech. Would the same were so of Marlowe.'

'An the dons lay hold of him, how shall he save himself?' Phelippes asked.

The question hung in the air. Phelippes didn't answer it. Neither did Robert Cecil. Silence did the job for them. One possibility immediately occurred to Shakespeare- by telling them all he knows. That had been in his mind ever since he'd had the misfortune to discover his fellow poet hadn't had the sense to get out of England while he could.

Cecil looked his way again. 'Gramercy, Master Shakespeare, for bringing this word to my notice. Doubt not I shall attend to't.'

'By the which you mean, do your confederates find him, he likewise dies the death,' Shakespeare said.

Now Cecil's gaze was perfectly opaque. Shakespeare realized he'd blundered, and might have blundered badly. It wasn't that he was wrong. It was, in fact, that he was right. Such things might better have stayed unspoken. Then the younger Cecil wouldn't either have to admit to planning Marlowe's untimely death or to tell a lie by denying it.

'Would he'd gone abroad,' Thomas Phelippes murmured: as much of an answer as Shakespeare was likely to