Ruled Britannia

small skill in the cheating law, and he'd not stick at sliding high men or low men or fullams into the game to gull a cousin. But a murtherer? I find that hard to credit, and I'd say as much to the constable's face.'

'Gramercy, if you'd be so kind,' Shakespeare said. He too thought Skeres would use dice with only high numbers or only low ones or weighted dice whenever he thought he could get away with it. 'Master Strawberry's importunings do leave me distracted from seeing King Philip forward. Could you ease them. '

'I hope I may,' the Master of the Revels said. 'Zeal without sense is like a mast without stays-the man having the one without the other will soon fall into misfortune. Ay, Master Shakespeare, I'll bespeak Strawberry for you.'

'For the which many thanks, sir. I'd be most disgraceful to you on account of't,' Shakespeare said, deadpan.

Sir Edmund Tilney started to nod and turn away. Then he heard what Shakespeare had really said. After one of the better double takes the poet had seen, Sir Edmund guffawed. 'You are a most dangerous vile wicked fellow,' he said, 'and you know your quarry as a cony-catcher knows his cony.'

'Why, whatever can you mean?' Shakespeare said. This time, they both laughed. Tilney clapped him on the shoulder and went off to chat with Thomas Vincent. By the way the prompter smiled and nodded, Sir Edmund was also telling him Lord Westmorland's Men could legitimately perform King Philip.

Shakespeare peered into a looking-glass. He muttered under his breath-he'd missed some greasepaint below one eye, so he looked as if he had a shiner. He scrubbed at the makeup with a rough cloth, then examined himself again. This time, he nodded in satisfaction.

The sun hung low in the west when he left the Theatre. The equinox had come the day before. Soon, all too soon, days would dwindle down to the brief hours of late autumn and winter. A chill breeze that smelled of rain made him glad of his thick wool doublet.

He hadn't gone far towards London before he saw Marlowe perched on a boulder by the side of Shoreditch High Street. The other poet, plainly, was waiting for him. 'Begone, you carrion crow, you croaker, you slovenly unhandsome corse,' Shakespeare said.

'Your servant, sir.' Marlowe descended from the rock and made a leg at him. 'You can play the ghost: I deny it not. Henceforth, I'll hear in your voice dead Darius' words.'

'I may play the ghost, but, do you not get hence, you'll have the role in good earnest,' Shakespeare answered. 'Robert Cecil knows you are returned to London. An his men find you, you are sped.' He didn't tell Marlowe he was the one who'd given Cecil that news.

'Wherefore should he seek to jugulate me?' Marlowe asked.

'Play not the innocent with me, thou false virgin,' Shakespeare said, wondering whether Marlowe were virgin anywhere upon his person. 'You know o'ermuch of. this and that.' He named no names, not with other people walking in Shoreditch High Street. 'You know o'ermuch, and your tongue flaps like drying linen i'the wind. Cause aplenty to see you silent-is't not so?'

'Like drying linen i'the wind? Thou most lying slave!'

'Nay.' Shakespeare shook his head. 'By God, Kit, hear me: I tell you the truth.' He clicked his tongue between his teeth in annoyance. He'd automatically come out with a line of blank verse, and not a very good one.

Marlowe noticed the same thing. 'And ten low words oft creep in one dull line,' he jeered-more blank verse, with a nasty barb.

'Mock an you would. Mock-but go. Stay and you die the death, if not from the likes of Ingram Frizer, then from the dons. What Cecil knows, belike they'll learn anon. Can you tell me I am mistook?'

They walked along, arguing. 'I can tell you I'm fain to stay to see the hand played out,' Marlowe said stubbornly.

'When first you learned the Spaniards dogged you, you nigh wet yourself for fear of 'em,' Shakespeare said. 'Then you were wise. This you show forth now, 'tis but a madman's courage. 'Steeth, did you not see you all but trod on de Vega's toes, there amongst the groundlings?'

'I saw him, ay, with yet another trull,' Marlowe said, scorn in his voice. 'What of it? He knew me not.'

First the Widow Kendall had doubted Cicely Sellis' chastity. Now Marlowe did the same. Shakespeare hadn't argued with his landlady. He saw little point to correcting Kit, either. Instead, he tried once more to make the other poet see sense: 'You are no player here. Being none, lie low, lest you bring yourself to the notice of them who'd lay you low. An you would-an you must-see how the hand plays out, but suffer it not to be played upon your person.'

'The counsel of a craven,' Marlowe said. 'I looked for better from you, Will.'

'You will throw your life away, you mad-headed ape. 'Tis pikestaff plain you care not a fig therefor: well, be it so. But in your lunacy will you throw old England away with it?'

'What's old England to me or I to old England, that I should weep for her?' Marlowe seemed genuinely curious.

'Say you so?' Shakespeare clapped a hand to his forehead. 'You brought me to this game, marble-pated fiend, and now it likes you not? Fie on you!'

Marlowe laughed. 'As though I were a Latin verb, you misconstrue me. For the game I care greatly; 'tis the game lured me back from Margate. I will see it played. An I may, I will play it. Ay, the game's the thing. But for England?' He snapped his fingers. 'That for old England.' With a nod, he ducked into the doorway of a tenement and disappeared.

Shakespeare started to go after him, then stopped, muttering a curse. What good would it do? None.

Less than none, probably. Shakespeare didn't believe Marlowe despised his country, as he said he did.

He was all pose, all outrageousness, all shock. But force him to it and he might decide he had to act on his pose. Better to leave him alone and hope he came to his senses on his own.

Better he had not left them, Shakespeare thought, but then, Use every man after his desert, and who should 'scape whipping? That cheery notion uppermost in his mind, he trudged on down towards Bishopsgate.

Enrique stretched out an imploring hand to Lope de Vega. 'Senior Lieutenant, you must let me know when you are to play Juan de IdiA?quez on the English stage,' Baltasar GuzmA?n's man said. 'I will come to see you, though I still know less of the language than I should.'

'I'll be glad to see you,' de Vega said. 'I fear it won't be long.'

'I fear the same. Every ship from Spain brings worse word of his Most Catholic Majesty.' Enrique crossed himself.

So did Lope. For all he knew, King Philip might already have died. Strange to think he would be in his grave back in Spain while here in England, till news of his death arrived, he still ruled. A play could make something of those twists of time and knowledge, Lope thought. He wondered how he might shape it.

'God protect the new King when his day comes' Enrique said.

Lope nodded. 'Yes. God protect him indeed.'

He and Enrique shared a glance. They both knew Philip III was not half, was not a quarter, of the man Philip II had been. Neither of them could say such a thing, but saying and knowing were far from the same. Lope feared for Spain in the reign of Philip II's son. He couldn't say that, either. He could pray.

He'd done a lot of praying lately.

Or he could try to put his worries out of his mind. He bowed to Enrique almost as respectfully as he would have to Captain GuzmA?n, then said, ' Hasta luego. I'm off to Bishopsgate.'

Enrique smiled. 'Good luck with your new lady friend, Senior Lieutenant.'

What a pity she is only a friend, Lope thought, and then, Well, if God is on my side, I may yet make her more. To Enrique, he said only, 'Thank you very much,' and hurried out of the barracks in the heart of London.

But his little chat with Captain Guzman's servant delayed him just enough so that, as he was coming out, he nearly bumped into Walter Strawberry, who was coming in. He couldn't escape the man, no matter how much he wanted to. With such grace as he could muster, he smiled and said, 'Give you good day, Constable