Ruled Britannia

Strawberry.'

'God give you good morrow as well, Lieutenant,' Strawberry replied. 'I have heard a thing passing strange, strange as any I have seen, the which, methought, I should bring to your honor's orifice.'

'Say on,' de Vega urged, hoping the Englishman would come to the point-if he had a point-and let him get on his way up to see Cicely Sellis.

In his own fashion, Walter Strawberry did: 'Dame Tumor hath it, sir, that Christopher Marlowe, otherwise styling himself one Karl Tuesday, is returned to London and making himself unbeknownst hereabouts.'

Lope stared. That was news-if true. 'How know you this? Have you seen him?'

'As I told you, not with mine own ears,' the constable answered. 'But I have much attestation thereto, from certain of them that share his advice.'

'His advice?' De Vega frowned, wondering what Strawberry was trying to say. Suddenly, a light dawned. 'Mean you-?'

'I mean what I say, and not a word of it,' Strawberry declared. 'He hath the advice of Gomorrah, wherefrom is he also tumorously said to suffer from the malediction which hight gomorrhea, or peradventure from the French pox.'

That held enough tangles to hide a swarm of foxes from the hounds, but Lope ruthlessly cut through them:

'You have it from catamites and sodomites that Marlowe is returned to London?' He didn't know whether Marlowe was diseased, nor much care. That wasn't his worry, not now.

And Walter Strawberry nodded. 'Said I not so?'

'One never knows,' Lope murmured. He clapped the English constable on the shoulder. 'You have done me a service to bring this word hither. Believe you me, sir, if Marlowe be in this city, we shall run him to earth. And now, I pray you, forgive, for I must away.' He pushed past Strawberry and out into St.

Swithin's Lane.

'But-' Strawberry called after him. He heard no more, for he was hurrying up the street, on his way to Bishopsgate at last. His rapier slapped against his thigh at every step.

His thoughts whirled. How could Marlowe have come back to London when he'd gone to sea? Why would he have come back? Knowing Marlowe fairly well, Lope made his own guess about that.

Something was stirring, and the Englishman wanted to see it, whatever it was. Marlowe could no more stay away from trouble than bees from flowering clover. What sort of trouble? de Vega wondered. One thing immediately sprang to mind: treason.

This means more questions for Shakespeare, Lope thought unhappily. If I find him at the lodging-house, I'll ask them now.

But the old woman who ran the place shook her head when he asked if Shakespeare was there. 'Surely you must know, sir, he is gone up to the Theatre, for to earn the bite wherewith his rent- my rent-to pay,' she said nervously.

Lope thought about going up to Shoreditch straightaway, but decided it would keep. He had no proof Shakespeare knew anything of Marlowe's return. For that matter, he had no proof Marlowe had returned. De Vega hoped Walter Strawberry was wrong, both for Marlowe's sake and because that would mean less trouble lay ahead.

When he knocked on Cicely Sellis' door, she opened it at once. But when she saw him standing there, she started a little, or more than a little. 'Oh. Master Lope. I looked for. another.'

'For Christopher Marlowe?' de Vega rapped out, suddenly suspicious of everyone around him.

But the cunning woman shook her head. 'I know him not,' she said. If she was acting, she proved how fond and foolish England's ban on actresses was. 'Why are you come here?'

'To speak with thee,' Lope said, seizing the opportunity.

Her mouth narrowed in exasperation. 'Come you in, then,' she said, 'but only for a moment, mind.'

Though she must have heard him use the intimate pronoun, she didn't follow suit.

As soon as Lope stepped inside, he realized she'd been waiting for a client. Astrological symbols were scrawled on the wall in charcoal, a circle inscribed on the rammed-earth floor. Tall candles burned to either side of the circle. Within it, Mommet scratched behind one ear to rout out a flea, then yawned at the Spaniard, showing needle teeth. It was de Vega's turn to say, 'Oh,' as light dawned, and then,

'You'd tell a fortune.' He dropped thou himself.

'Ay, and for a good price, too, of the which stand I in need,' Cicely Sellis said. 'Say what you would and then, I pray you, away. The bird comes anon.'

And you don't want a Spaniard about to frighten him off, whoever he is, de Vega thought. Well, fair enough. Better trusting her intentions, he sighed dramatically and tried again: 'I'd speak to thee of love.'

Her smile showed more annoyance than amusement. 'I tell you, sir, I've no time for't now. Speak me fair another day, an't please you, and who knows? Haply I will hear you.'

'Haply?' he said, less than delighted at the hedge.

But Cicely Sellis nodded. 'Haply,' she repeated, her voice firm. 'Would you have me promise more than I may give?'

'By my troth, I'd kiss thee with a most constant heart,' Lope said.

She looked harassed. The cat, eerily reflecting her mood as it often did, bared its teeth again. After a moment, though, she said, 'A bargain: one kiss, and then you go? If there be more between us, let it wait its proper occasion, which this is not.'

'One kiss, then, lady, and I am hence,' Lope promised. She nodded once more, and stepped forward.

He took her in his arms. Having but the one chance, he made the most of it, clasping her to him so their bodies molded to each other. Her mouth was sweet and knowing against his.

The kiss went on and on. At last, though, it had to end. Lope's arms still around her, Cicely Sellis stroked his cheek. But she said only one word: 'Farewell.'

' Aii, thou'lt tear out my heart like the savage men of New Spain!' Lope cried. She only waited. He thought about the risks of breaking a bargain with a bruja-thought about them and found them formidable. Though his lips still glowed from the touch of hers, he bowed stiffly. 'Farewell,' he echoed, and, spinning on his heel, strode out of her room and out of the lodging-house.

Storming away, he almost ran into-almost ran over-another man heading for the Widow Kendall's house: a broad-shouldered fellow with a smooth face and with hair cut short. Lope took a step past the man, then froze, remembering what Walter Strawberry had told him. 'Marlowe!' he said, and his sword seemed to leap from its sheath into his hand.

Christopher Marlowe whirled. He too wore a rapier. It flashed free. 'The fig of Spain!' he shouted. His obscene gesture matched the words.

'Put up!' Lope said. 'Put up and give over. You're caught. Even an you beat me, you're known to be in London. How can you hope to win free? Yield you now.'

'I will not.' Marlowe sighed and shook his head. 'Base fortune, now I see, that in thy wheel there is a point, to which when men aspire they tumble headlong down.' He seemed to speak more to himself than to de Vega. 'That point I touched, and seeing there was no point to mount up higher, why should I grieve at my declining fall?' With no more warning than that, he thrust at Lope's heart.

Lope beat the blade aside. His hand had more to do with his answering stroke than did his brain, though perhaps he remembered his fight with Don Alejandro de Recalde. His point took Marlowe not in the right eye but above it. The English poet let out a shriek that faded almost at once to a rattling gurgle. He fell down in the street, dead as a stone.

A big, rough-looking blond man wearing a disreputable cap smiled at Lope, showing a couple of missing teeth. 'Gramercy, your honor,' he said, and touched the brim of that cap. 'You just saved me a bit o' work, that you did.' Before the Spaniard could ask him what he meant, he hurried away.