Ruled Britannia (24 page)

Lope rode into London. He still drew catcalls and curses. Inside the wall, though, Spaniards were more common, as were Englishmen who favored the Spanish cause. A man who flung, say, a ball of dung ran some real risk of being seen and noted. Catcalls Lope took in stride.

When he got back to the barracks, the stable boys clucked at the horse's sorry state. “And what of me?” Lope said indignantly. “Am I a plant in a pot?”

“It could be so,
señor
,” one of them answered. “And if it is, you're a well manured plant, by God and St. James.” He held his nose. His friends laughed. Had the misfortune befallen someone else, Lope might have laughed, too. Since it was his own, laughter only enraged him. He stormed off to his chamber.

There he found his servant, sleeping the sleep of the innocent and just. “Diego!” he shouted. Diego's snores changed timbre, but not rhythm. “
Diego!
” Lope screamed. The servant muttered something vaguely placating and rolled from his back to his belly. Lope shook him like a man trying to shake fleas out of a doublet.

Diego's eyes opened. “Oh,
buenos días, señor
,” he said. “Is it an earthquake?”

“If there were an earthquake, it would swallow you as the whale swallowed Jonah,” Lope said furiously. “And do you know what? Do you know what, you son of a debauched sloth?”

His servant didn't want to answer, but saw he had no choice. “What,
señor
?” he quavered.

“If there were an earthquake, it would swallow you as the whale swallowed Jonah,
and you wouldn't even know it!
” Lope bellowed. “Scotland—”

That got Diego's attention, where nothing up till then really had. “Not Scotland,
señor
, I beg you,” he broke in. “The Scots are even worse than the Irish, from all I hear. May the holy Mother of God turn her back on me if I lie. They cook blood in a sheep's stomach and call it supper, and some say it is the blood of men.”

“Scotland, I was going to say, is too good for you,” de Vega snarled. He had the satisfaction of watching Diego quail, a satisfaction marred when his servant yawned in the midst of cringing. “By God, Diego, if you fall asleep now I'll murder you in your bed. Do you think I'm lying? Do you want to find out if I'm lying?”

“No,
señor
. All I want to do is . . .” Diego stopped, looking even more miserable than he had. He'd undoubtedly been about to say,
All I want to do is go back to sleep
. He wasn't very bright, but he could see that that would land him in even more trouble than he'd already found. A querulous whine crept into his voice as he went on, “I thought you'd stay at that damned Theatre a lot longer than you did.”

“And so?” Lope said. “And so? Because I'm not here, does that mean you get to lie there like a salt cod? Why weren't you blacking my boots? Why weren't you mending my shirts? Why weren't you keeping your
ears open for anything that might be to my advantage, the way Captain Guzmán's Enrique does?”
Why does that vain little thrip of a Baltasar Guzmán get a prince among servants, while I'm stuck with a donkey, and a dead donkey at that?

Diego said something inflammatory and scandalous about exactly how intimate Enrique and Captain Guzmán were. “How would you know that?” Lope jeered. “When have you been awake to see them?”

“It's true,
señor
,” Diego answered. “Everybody says so.”

Lecturing his servant on what “everybody said” was worth struck de Vega as a waste of breath. But his pause was thoughtful for more reasons than that. If Guzmán really did prove a
maricón
, a sodomite, he might lose his position. He would, in fact, if he brought scandal to himself or to the Spanish occupiers as a group. And who would benefit if Baltasar Guzmán fell?
I would
, Lope thought.
People can call me a great many things, but a sodomite? Never!

Diego's narrow little eyes glittered nastily. “Are you thinking what I'm thinking?”

“No,” Lope said, not without well-concealed regret. “I am thinking that maybe you would do better asleep after all. When you're awake, your mind goes from the chamber pot to the sewage ditch. For I happen to know Captain Guzmán had a mistress till they quarreled a few months ago.”

“And why would they quarrel?” Diego asked. “If he'd sooner—”

“
¡Basta!
” Lope said. “And not just enough but too much. Get up. Get out of here. Do what you're supposed to do. Then, once you've done that—which will include cleaning the clothes I have on, for the English threw filth at me and my horse today—once you've done that, I say, you'll have earned your rest, and you'll enjoy it more.”

His servant looked highly dubious. De Vega supposed he had some reason. The only way he could enjoy his rest more would be to make love without waking up. Diego also thought about making some remark on the state of Lope's clothes. Again, he was wise to think twice. Grumbling under his breath, he did at last get out of bed.

Lope pulled off his boots, shed his stinking netherstocks and hose, and got out of his befouled doublet. He changed quickly; the room was cold. And then he went off to make the day's report to Captain Guzmán. “Damn you, Diego,” he muttered under his breath as he went. No matter what everybody said about Guzmán—if everybody said anything about him—Lope still had to deal with him. That was hard enough
already, and would be harder still if de Vega watched his superior out of the corner of his eye, looking for signs he might be a sodomite.

Before he got to Guzmán's office, he ran into Enrique. Or had Enrique contrived to run into him? Eyes wide with excitement behind the lenses of his spectacles, Captain Guzmán's servant said, “Tell me at once, Senior Lieutenant—what is it like, shaping a play with
Señor
Shakespeare?”

“I don't shape here,” Lope said, remembering he might have to watch Enrique out of the corner of his eye, too. “I only have some lumber to sell. Shakespeare is the carpenter. He cuts and carves and nails things together. He'll do it very well, too, I think.”

“He has a mind of his own?” Enrique asked.

“
¡Por Dios, sí!
” Lope exclaimed, and the clever young servant laughed. “You can think it's funny,” de Vega told him. “You don't have to work with the Englishman.”

Enrique sighed. “Oh, but I wish I did!”

“Is your master in?” Lope asked.

“Yes, I think so,” Enrique said. “He was at a . . . friend's house last night, but he said before he left that he'd try to return in good time.”

He said
amiga
, not
amigo
: the “friend” was of the feminine persuasion.
So much for what everybody says
, Lope thought. “Have you seen her?” he asked. “Is she pretty?”

“I should hope so,
señor
!” Enrique said enthusiastically. “A face like an angel's, and tits out to here.” He held a hand an improbable distance in front of his chest.

So much indeed for what everybody says
, de Vega thought. When he walked into Baltasar Guzmán's office, the young captain looked like a cat that had just fallen into a bowl of cream. And when Guzmán asked, “What's the latest, Senior Lieutenant?” he didn't sound as if he'd bite Lope's head off if he didn't like the answer. He must have had a night to remember.

I wish I were in love again. I probably will be soon, but I'm not now, and I miss it
. Sighing, de Vega summarized his session with Shakespeare. He also summarized the English attitude toward lone Spaniards on horseback: “Only my good luck they chose to throw more dung than stones. I might not have made it back if they'd gone the other way.”

Captain Guzmán said, “I'm glad you're safe, de Vega. You're a valuable man.” While Lope was still gaping, wondering if he'd heard straight, his superior added, “And I'm glad things are going so well with the English poet. Keep up the good work.”

Lope left his office in something of a daze. Maybe Guzmán's
amiga
really did have the face of an angel and tits out to
there
. Lope couldn't imagine what else would have made the sardonic nobleman seem so much like a human being.

 

“W
HERE
'
S
M
ASTER
M
ARTIN?”
Shakespeare asked in the tiring room at the Theatre. “He was to have the different several parts from
Love's Labour's Won
ready to go to the scribes, that they might make for the players fair copies.”

“Good luck to 'em,” Will Kemp said. “There's not a rooster living could read your hen scratchings.”

The clown exaggerated, but not by a great deal—not enough, at any rate, to make Shakespeare snap back at him. Richard Burbage looked around. “Ay, where is he?” Burbage said, as if Kemp hadn't spoken. “Geoff's steady as the tides, trusty as a hound—”

“Ah, Dick,” Kemp murmured. “You shew again why you're so much better with another man's words in your mouth.”

He'd made that crack before. It must have stung even so, for Burbage glared at him. A couple of players laughed, but they quickly fell silent. Not only was Burbage a large, powerful man, but he and his family owned the Theatre. Insulting him to his face took nerve—
or a fool's foolishness
, Shakespeare thought.

“Pray God he hath not absconded,” Jack Hungerford said.

That drew a loud, raucous guffaw from Will Kemp. “Pray God indeed!” the clown said. “He's to the broggers with all our papers, for the which, they'll assuredly pay him not a farthing under sixpence ha'penny—he's rich for life, belike.”

He got a bigger laugh there than he had when he mocked Burbage. Shakespeare didn't find the crack funny. “Loose papers may not signify to thee, that hast not had pirates print 'em without thy let and without thy profit,” he growled. “As ever, thou think'st naught for any of the company but thyself. Thou'rt not only fool, but ass and dog as well.”

“A dog, is it?” Kemp said. “Thy mother's of my generation; what's she, if I be a dog?”

Shakespeare sprang for him. They each landed a couple of punches before the others of the company pulled them apart. Smarting from a blow on the cheek, Shakespeare snarled, “A dog thou art, and for the sake of bitchery.” He didn't know that Kemp sought whores more than
any other man, but flung the insult anyhow, too furious to care about truth.

Before the clown could reply in like vein, someone with a loud, booming voice called out from the doorway to the tiring room: “Here, now! Here now, by God! What's the meaning of this? What's the meaning of't, by God?”

“Constable Strawberry!” Burbage said. “Good day, sir.”

“Good day,” Walter Strawberry said. He was a jowly, middle-aged man who looked like a bulldog and had little more wit.

“I hope you are well?” Burbage said. The Theatre belonging to his family, he dealt with the constable. “I have not seen you long; how goes the world?”

“It wears, sir, as it grows,” the constable replied.

“Ay, that's well known.” Burbage's tone grew sharper: “Why come you here?” He quietly paid the constable and his helpers to stay away from the Theatre except when the players needed aid.

“First tell you me, what's this garboil here in aid of? What's it about, eh?” He pointed to the men holding Shakespeare and the others with a grip on Kemp.

“Words, words, words,” Shakespeare answered, twisting free. “Good words are better than bad strokes, and the strokes Will and I gave each other were poor as any ever given. We are, meseems, friends again.” He looked toward the clown.

Kemp had also got loose. “Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly,” he said. Shakespeare stiffened. With a nasty smile, Kemp added, “But not ours.” He came over to Shakespeare and planted a large, wet, smacking kiss on his cheek, whispering, “Scurvy, dotard, thin-faced knave,” as he did so.

His acting wouldn't have convinced many, but it sufficed for Constable Strawberry. “Good, good,” he boomed. “High spirits, animal spirits, eh?”

“Why come you here?” Richard Burbage repeated, as Shakespeare and Kemp, both cued by
animal spirits
, mouthed,
Ass
, at each other.

“Why come I here?” the constable echoed, as if he himself might have forgotten. He coughed portentously, then went on, “Know you a certain wight named Geoffrey Martin?”

“We do,” Burbage answered.

Will Kemp said, “A more certain wight never was born, by God.” Strawberry ignored that, which probably meant he didn't understand it.

“Why come you here?” Burbage asked for the third time. “Hath aught amiss befallen him?”

“Amiss? Amiss?” Walter Strawberry said. “You might say so. You just might—an you reckon murther aught amiss, you might.”

“Murther?” The dreadful word came from half the company, Shakespeare among them. Horror and astonishment filled most voices. Shakespeare's held horror alone. He realized he was not surprised, and wished to heaven he were.