Ruled Britannia (27 page)

“Didst thou have a choice . . .” Kate echoed.

Before God, I know not what I'd do
, Shakespeare thought. If he hadn't got Anne with child, he doubted he would have wed her. Years and years too late to worry about that now, though.
What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder
. He'd heard that text in sermons more times than he could count since the Armada put Isabella and Albert on the English throne. Priests harped on it, to show that Protestants who countenanced divorce were heretics and sinners.

“Didst thou have a choice . . .” Kate repeated, a little more sharply this time.

Would she have me lie to her?
Shakespeare wondered. He was just then and would keep on lying to practically everyone he knew. Why should a serving woman be different from anyone else?
Because I do—
because I might—love her
. Not a perfect answer, but the best he could do.

“Did I have a choice, my chuck . . .” Shakespeare sighed and shrugged, expecting her to throw him out of that narrow bed for not crying out that he would cleave to her come what might.

She startled him by laughing, and startled him again by kissing him on the cheek. “Perhaps thou art truly honest, Will. Most men'd lie for the sake of their sweetheart's feelings.”

“I'll give thee what I can, Kate, and cherish all thou givest me. And now I had best be gone.” Shakespeare got out of bed and began to dress.

“God keep thee, Will,” she said, a yawn blurring her words. “Hurry to thy lodging. Surely curfew's past.”

“God keep thee,” he said, and opened the door to her room. He went out, closing the door behind him.

 

L
OPE DE
V
EGA
came up to the priest. The Englishman marked his forehead with the ashes of the “palm” (usually, in this northern clime, willow or box or yew) branches used the previous Palm Sunday. In Latin, the priest said, “Remember, thou art dust, and to dust thou shalt return.”

Crossing himself, Lope murmured, “Amen,” and made his way out of St. Swithin's church. Most of the people he saw on the streets, English and Spaniards alike, already had their foreheads marked with the sign of repentance that opened the Lenten season. Anyone who didn't, especially in a year when Catholics and heretics celebrated Easter more than a month apart, would get some hard looks from those whose duty was to examine such things.

Though it was still the first week of February, the day was springlike: mild, almost warm, the sky a hazy blue with fluffy white clouds drifting slowly across it from west to east. The sun shone brightly. A few more such days and flowers would begin to open, seeds to bring forth new plants, leaves to bud on trees.

Once, Lope had seen this weather hold long enough for nature to be fooled—which made the following blizzard all the crueler by comparison. He didn't expect this stretch to last so long. Usually, they were like a deceitful girl who promised much more than she intended to give. Knowing as much, he didn't feel himself cheated, as he had when he'd first come to England.

“I am sure you are brokenhearted that Lord Westmorland's Men have got a dispensation to let them perform through Lent,” Captain Baltasar Guzmán said outside the church.

“Oh, of course, your Excellency,” de Vega replied. He was damned if he'd let this little pipsqueak, still wet behind the ears, outdo him in irony. He touched his forehead, as if to say the ashes there symbolized his mourning. But then he went on, “Most of the acting companies gain these dispensations. They would have a hard time staying in business if they didn't.” Acting companies were by the nature of things shoestring operations (Lord Westmorland's Men a bit less than most); they could ill afford losing more than a tenth of their revenue by shutting down between Ash Wednesday and Easter.

“Well, go on up to the Theatre, then,” Guzmán said. “See if anyone is bold enough to flaunt his heresy to the world at large. Whoever he is, he will pay.”

“Yes, sir,” Lope said. “Sir, is there any further word of his Most Catholic Majesty? Shakespeare has asked after him. Not unreasonably, he wants some notion of how much time he has to compose the drama Don Diego Flores de Valdés set him.”

“I have news, yes, but none of it good,” Captain Guzmán replied. “The gout has attacked his neck, which makes both eating and sleeping very difficult for him. And the sores on his hands and feet show no sign of healing. If anything, they begin to ulcerate and spread. Also, his dropsy is no better—if anything, is worse.”

Tears stung Lope's eyes. He touched the ashes on his forehead again. “The priest in the church spoke truly: to dust we shall return. But this is bitter, a man who was—who
is
—so great, having an end so hard and slow. Better if he simply went to sleep one night and never woke up.”

“God will do as He pleases, Senior Lieutenant, not as you please. Would you set your judgment against His?”

“No, sir—not that it would do any good if I did, for He can act and all I can do is talk.”

Guzmán relaxed. “So long as you understand that. With a man who makes plays . . . Forgive me, but I wondered if you arrogated some of the Lord's powers to yourself, since you make your characters and move them about as if you were the Almighty for them.”

Lope looked at him in astonishment. “I have had those blasphemous thoughts, yes, sir. My confessor has given me heavy penance on account of them. How could you guess?”

“It seemed logical,” Guzmán said. “You have a world inside your head, an imaginary world filled with imaginary people. Who could blame you for believing, now and again, that that imaginary world is real? You make it seem real to others in your plays—why not to yourself as well?”

“Do you know, your Excellency, I am going to have to pay serious attention to you, whether I want to or not,” de Vega said slowly.

Baltasar Guzmán set a hand on his shoulder. “Now, now, Senior Lieutenant. You had better be careful what you say, or you'll embarrass both of us. Being your superior,
I
should do the embarrassing. Let me try: how is your latest lady friend?”

Lope wasn't embarrassed. He flashed Guzmán a grin. “She's very well, thank you,” he said, and heaved a sigh. “I do believe she is the sweetest creature I ever met.”

“And I do believe you've said that about every woman for whom you ever conceived an affection, which must be half the women in England, at the very least.” Captain Guzmán grinned, too, a nasty, crooked grin. “How am I doing?”

“Pretty well, thanks,” Lope answered. “You make me glad I'm going to the Theatre.” He wasn't sorry to hurry away from St. Swithin's, for Captain Guzmán's shot had hit in the white center of the target. Lope
did
passionately believe, at least for a while, that each new girl was
the
one upon whom God had most generously bestowed His gifts. What point to loving someone, after all, if she weren't special? Lucy Watkins, now . . .

As he made his way through the teeming streets of London, he thought of her shy little smile, of her soft voice, of the pale little wisps of hair that came loose no matter how tightly plaited the rest was . . . and of the taste of her lips, of her uncommonly sweet smell, of the charms he hadn't sampled yet but soon hoped to.

A constable and a tavern-keeper stood arguing outside the latter's door. The constable wagged his finger in the other fellow's face. “Marry, there is another indictment upon thee,” he said severely, “for suffering flesh to be eaten in thy house, contrary to the law; for the which I think thou wilt howl.”

“All victuallers do so,” the tavern-keeper protested. “What's a joint of mutton or two in a whole Lent?”

“In a whole Lent?” the constable said. “A whole Lent, with Ash Wednesday scarce begun? Thou'lt go to the dock for this, beshrew me if
thou dost not. Every soul is of a mind to crush out Protestantism like it was a black-beetle in amongst the sallat greens. Bad business, heresy, terrible bad.”

“Protestantism? Heresy? Art daft, George Trimble? What's that to do with a bit o' mutton?—for the which thou'st shown no small liking, Lents gone by.”

“Liar!” the constable exclaimed, in tones that couldn't mean anything but,
In the name of God, keep your mouth shut!
He went on, “Besides, Lents gone by have naught to do with now. It's all the calendar, it is, that has to do with heresy.”

“How?” the tavern-keeper demanded.

“Why, for that it does, that's how,” George Trimble said. Lope sighed and went on his way. He could have explained what the problem was, but he didn't think either of the quarreling Englishmen would have cared to listen to him.

By now, the men who took money at the Theatre recognized Lope and waved him through as if he were one of the sharers among Lord Westmorland's Men. He wished he were. The life of a Spanish lieutenant was as nothing next to that which Burbage or Shakespeare or Will Kemp lived. De Vega was sure of it.

Kemp threw back his head and howled like a wolf when Lope walked into the Theatre. De Vega gave back a courtier's bow, which at least disconcerted the clown for a moment. Kemp, he noticed, wore no ashes on his forehead. What did that mean? Did it mean anything? With Kemp, you could never be sure.

Swords clashed as a couple of actors rehearsed a fight scene. One glance told de Vega neither of them had ever used a blade in earnest. Burbage, he'd seen, had some notion of what he was about. These fellows? The Spaniard shook his head. They were even worse than Shakespeare, who'd never pretended to be a warrior.

Burbage, now, boomed out the Scottish King's lines:

 

“ ‘Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased,

Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow,

Raze out the written troubles of the brain,

And with some sweet oblivious antidote

Cleanse the stuffed bosom of that perilous stuff

Which weighs upon the heart?' ”

 

“ ‘Therein the patient must minister to himself,' ” replied the hireling playing the doctor.

Burbage frowned. Lope had seen the Scottish play a couple of times, and admired it. He knew, or thought he knew, what the actor was supposed to say next. And, sure enough, someone hissed from the tiring room: “ ‘Throw physic to the dogs.' ”

“ ‘Throw physic to the dogs; I'll none of it,' ” Burbage finished, and went on in his own voice: “My thanks, Master Vincent. The line would not come to me.”

“No need to praise my doing only that for which you took me into your company,” replied Thomas Vincent, the new prompter and playbook-keeper. He came out to nod to Burbage. “You should reprove me if I keep silence.” He was about Lope's age, lean, and seemed bright. Lope had learned he went to Mass every Sunday. Before the Armada came, he'd been as zealous in attending Protestant Sunday services.

A trimmer
, de Vega thought scornfully.
Whichever way the wind blows, that's the way he'll go
. But a lot of men, likely a majority, were like that. It made things easier for those who would rule them.
Shakespeare's like that, too
, Lope reminded himself.
He was no Catholic when Elizabeth ruled this land
. Which was one more reason to reckon him an unlikely traitor. He'd made his compromises with the way things were. The ones you had to worry about were those who refused to change, no matter what refusing cost them.

Geoffrey Martin
, Lope thought. He'd paid no special attention to the prompter while Martin lived. Now that Martin was dead, it was too late.
Sir Edmund Tilney—or, if not the Master of the Revels, someone in his office—could tell me more about him
.

“Seek you Master Will?” Richard Burbage called.

“An you do, you've found him.” But that was Will Kemp, not Shakespeare. The clown went from making a leg at Lope to collapsing in a heap before him: one of the better pratfalls he'd seen.

De Vega shook his head. “Many thanks, but nay. I have that for which I came.” He bowed to Burbage (who looked surprised at his saying no) and to Kemp, resisting the impulse to try to match the fool's loose-jointed toppling sprawl. Then he hurried out of the Theatre.

Captain Guzmán didn't think of this. Maybe I'll learn something important. Even if I don't, I'll look busy. If I have my own ideas and follow them up, how can Guzmán complain about me? He can't—and if I'm busy
on another play of my own, well, by God, he'll have a hard time complaining about that, too
.

 

“H
AVE YOU A
moment, Master Hungerford?” Shakespeare hated asking the question, and the ones that would follow. He hated it even more than he had when he'd spoken with Geoffrey Martin. When Martin gave the wrong answers, the inconvenient answers, Shakespeare hadn't known what would happen next. Now he did. If blood flowed, it would drip from his hands.

But the tireman only nodded. “Certes, Master Will. What would you?” He flicked a speck of lint from a velvet robe.

“What costumes have we for a Roman play?” Shakespeare asked.