Ruled Britannia (44 page)

“How fares King Philip himself?” he inquired.

Lope de Vega frowned. “Not well, I fear me: not well at all. Late word from Spain hath it he waxeth dropsical, his belly and thighs now much distended whilst his other members waste away.”

He crossed himself. Shakespeare did the same. He couldn't quite hide a shudder. He'd seen the horrid bloating of dropsy, seen it rob its victims of life an inch at a time. They'd had to press a board against one
luckless player's belly to help him make water, as if they were squeezing the juice from grapes in a wine press. Next to that, the swift certainty of the gallows seemed a mercy.
But you'd have no swift end, not now. . . .

“Best you finish the play, quick as you might,” de Vega told him. “Soon enough—all too soon—the company will show it forth.”

“It lacks but little,” Shakespeare said.

“Glad I am to hear you say so,” the Spaniard said. “As soon as all the parts be finished, let your prompter give them to the scribes, that they might make fair copies of them for the players to learn by heart.”

“Certes, your honor. Just as you say, so shall it be.” Now Shakespeare bowed. “You know well the customary usages of a theatre not your own.”

He put more sarcasm into that than perhaps he should have. De Vega, fortunately, did not seem to notice. He answered, “They are not so different from those of Spain. Your prompter is new to his work, not so?”

“Indeed, his predecessor having . . . died.” Guilt stabbed at Shakespeare. He did his best not to show it. De Vega here might one day talk to Constable Strawberry, and Strawberry, in his own plodding way, had already connected Shakespeare and Ingram Frizer, though he didn't quite know what connections he'd made.

But, for now, Lope de Vega's attention focused on
King Philip
and the problems involved in producing it. “An he have trouble finding scribes fit for the matter, I ken a man who'd suit it.”

“Ah?” Shakespeare said: the most noncommittal noise he could make.

Lope nodded. “Ay, sir: an Englishman already in the employ of Don Diego, and thus acquainted with all you purpose here. I have seen his writing, and know him to have an excellent character, most legible. He is called Thomas . . . ah . . . Phelippes.”

He pronounced the name in the Spanish manner, as if it had three syllables. That kept Shakespeare from recognizing it for a moment. When he did, he felt as if a thunderbolt had crashed to earth at his feet. Lope knew Phelippes well enough to know what sort of scribe he made? Did the Spanish officer have a fair copy of
Boudicca
? Had he got it before Thomas Vincent got his?

Whom may I trust?
Shakespeare wondered dizzily.
Vincent? Phelippes? Nick Skeres? Lord Burghley? Anyone in all the world?
The deeper into the plot he sank, the closer he came to the moment when the
company would offer one play or the other, the more certain he became that no one had any business ever trusting anyone else.

“What think you,
señor
?” Lope asked when Shakespeare didn't answer right away.

“Master Vincent, meseems, hath already scribes enough for the work,” Shakespeare said, picking his words with the greatest of care. “You were wiser, though, to speak to him in this matter than to me. He is quite out of countenance with my character, reckoning it to show mine own bad character.”

The Spanish officer chuckled at his feeble wordplay, not knowing how hard Shakespeare was working to distract him and to conceal his own alarm. “As you suggest, so shall I do,” de Vega said. “Shall I find him in the tiring room?”

“I know not,” Shakespeare replied, hoping Vincent had had the sense, and the time, to hide the fair copy—the fair copy Thomas Phelippes had written out!—of
Boudicca
.

“I'll seek him there,” Lope said, and off he went before Shakespeare could try to delay him any more. No howls of fright or fury came from behind the stage, so Shakespeare dared hope the prompter had proved prompt enough in concealing the dangerous play.

Shakespeare had only a small part in the day's production, Marlowe's
Caligula
. The poet was fled, but his plays lived on. Shakespeare would have been glad with more to do; he might have worried less. As things were, he'd never been so glad to escape the Theatre once the show was done.

He hadn't gone far towards London before Richard Burbage fell into step with him. “Give you good even,” the other player said, and then, “It went right well, methought.”

He'd played the title role, and milked it for all it was worth. Still, Shakespeare nodded; as Marlowe had written it, the role was worth milking. “This was the frightfullest Roman of them all,” Shakespeare said.

“In sooth, he is a choice bit of work,” Burbage said. “And, in sooth, could we but show more of what he did, he'd seem frightfuller yet.”

“It wonders me the Master of the Revels gave Kit leave to present e'en as much as the play offers,” Shakespeare said.

“Come the day,
we'll
show more than Sir Edmund wots of,” Burbage observed.

“Come the day,” Shakespeare echoed. “And, by what the Spaniard
saith, the day comes soon: Philip hath declined further.” He walked along for a few paces, then added, “Or, come the day, we'll give the auditors
King Philip
, and all will weep for fallen glory.”

Burbage was also silent for a little while. “Peradventure we will,” he said at last. “But ere I sleep each night, I pray God they'll see the other.” Here in Shoreditch High Street, he named no names. Who could tell which jade or ragamuffin might take some incautious word to the dons or the English Inquisition?

“Well, Dick, your prayer, at least, is to the purpose,” Shakespeare said wearily. “When I petition the Lord, it is that He let this cup pass from me. I fear me, though, He hears me not.” He threw his hands in the air. “ 'Swounds, why fled I not this madness or ever it laid hold of me?”

“The heart hath its reasons, whereof reason knoweth naught,” Burbage said.

Shakespeare stopped in surprise. “That is well said. Is't your own?” When Burbage nodded, Shakespeare set a hand on his shoulder. “When next Will Kemp assails you as being but the mouthpiece for other men, cast defiance in's teeth.”

“So I would, and so I will,” the other player answered. “But gramercy for your courtesy.”

“Your servant, sir,” Shakespeare said. “Would I were penning some trifling comedy of lovers loving will they, nill they; I'd engraft your line therein fast as ever I could.” He sighed. “Shall I ever again labor over aught so sweet and simple?”

“But if all go well . . .” Burbage said.

“Perhaps,” Shakespeare said, and said no more. He didn't want his hopes to rise too high. They would only have further to fall.

Burbage might have sensed as much. Instead of going on with the argument, he pointed ahead. “Bishopsgate draws nigh. Spring at last being arrived, it likes me having daylight left once we've strutted and fretted our two hours upon the stage.”

“Why, it doth like me as well,” Shakespeare said in surprise. He clapped a hand to his forehead. “By my troth, Dick, I've scarce noted proud-pied April, dressed in all his trim, putting a spirit of youth in everything. Goose quill and paper have compassed round my life.”

“Belike, for it's April no moe,” Burbage told him. “These are May's new-fangled shows, and far from the best of 'em.”

“May?” Shakespeare cried. “Surely not! Surely they'd have decked
the streets with greenery, as is the custom, and burnt bonfires, and run up maypoles for that they might dance round 'em.”

“Surely they would have. Surely they did. Surely you never marked it.” Richard Burbage eyed him with amused pity.

“Wait!” Shakespeare snapped his fingers. “I mind me we gave the groundlings
The Taming of the Shrew
on the day. There! D'you see? I had some knowledge of it after all.” That felt very important to him just then.

Burbage's expression changed not a jot. “And so we did. But why know you of it? Only for that it came to pass within the Theatre's bourne. Otherwise . . .” He shook his head.

As usual, Irishmen with long, hungry faces and fiery eyes stood guard at Bishopsgate. The gallowglasses glowered at Shakespeare and Burbage: the two players were big enough and young enough to seem dangerous no matter how mildly they behaved. One of the guards said something in his own musical language, of which Shakespeare understood not a word. Another started to draw his sword. But their sergeant—distinguishable only because he was a few years older and a little more scarred—shook his head. He waved the Englishmen into London, saying, “Pass through. Quick now, mind.”

“Lean raw-boned rascals,” Burbage muttered, but he made sure the gallowglasses couldn't hear him.

“I do despise the bloody cannibals,” Shakespeare agreed, also in a low voice. “May they prove roast meat for worms.”

“God grant it!” Burbage said. “That the dons lord it over us is one thing—they earned the right, having beaten us in war. But these redpolled swashbucklers?” He shook his head. “Men who'd never dare rise against the Spaniards will run riot to cast out Irish wolves.”

“Ay, belike.” Shakespeare wondered if Sir William Cecil had thought of inflaming Londoners against the savages from the western island.
Likely he will have
, the poet thought.
He sees so much; would he have missed that?
Still, he resolved to speak of it to Lord Burghley when next he saw him, or to Nick Skeres or Thomas Phelippes if he didn't see the noble soon.

Phelippes?
Shakespeare kicked a pebble into a puddle. Whom did the clever, dusty little man really serve? Sir William? Don Diego? Or only himself, first, last, and always? As soon as Shakespeare shaped the question, he saw what the answer had to be. But where, in the end, would
Phelippes judge his interest lay? And how much would that cost everyone on the other side?

Burbage clapped him on the back. “I'm to mine own house. God give you good even, Will.”

“And you,” Shakespeare said absently. His head full of plots, he had to remind himself to turn off Bishopsgate Street and make for his lodging. Then he'd be off to the ordinary, to write as long as he could, and then back to the lodging once more, this time to sleep. “God save me,” he muttered. “May Day passed by, and I knew it not.” He wondered what else he'd missed, and decided he didn't want to know.

 

“C
OME ON
, D
IEGO
,” Lope de Vega said impatiently from horseback. “You have only a donkey to mount. The two of you must be close cousins.”

“
Señor
, I would never mount my cousin. The Good Book forbids it—and besides, she's ugly,” his servant answered. As Lope blinked at such unexpected wit, Diego swung up into the saddle. The ass brayed pitifully at his weight.

“You have your costume?” Lope demanded. Diego set a hand on a saddlebag. De Vega nodded. “Good. To Westminster, then. They say England's Isabella may come to watch the play, to see Castile's performed on stage. She could make your fortune, Diego.”
She could make mine
, he thought.

Diego said, “A servant playing a servant won't make much of a mark. You should have cast me as Ferdinand.”

They rode away from the Spanish barracks at the heart of London and west toward the court center. Lope had to rein in to keep his horse, a high-spirited mare, from leaving Diego's donkey behind. “Ferdinand!” Lope said. “What mad dream is that? You're not asleep now, not so I can tell.”

“But am I not the perfect figure of a king?” Diego said.

Surveying his rotund servant, de Vega answered, “You are the perfect figure of two kings—at least.” Diego sent him a venomous glare.

Lope paid no attention. On such a day, he was happy enough to be outdoors. As always, spring had, to a Spaniard's reckoning, come late to England, but it was here at last. The sun shone brightly. The only clouds in the sky were small white ones, drifting slowly from west to east on a mild breeze. It had rained a couple of days before—not hard, just enough to lay the dust without turning the road into a bog.

Everything was green. New grass grew exuberantly: more so than it ever did in drier, hotter Castile. Trees and bushes were in new leaf. The earliest spring flowers had begun to brighten the landscape. Birdsong filled the moist air. Robins and chaffinches, cuckoos and larks, waxwings and tits all made music. They left England sooner and came back later than they did in Spain. Each spring, when they returned, Lope discovered anew how much he'd missed them and how especially empty and barren the winter had seemed without them.

Diego smiled to hear those songs, too. “Mesh nets,” he murmured. “Birdlime. By all the saints, there's nothing can match a big plate of songbirds, all nicely roasted on spits or maybe baked in a pie. I don't think much of English cookery, but they make some savory pies. Beefsteak and kidney's mighty tasty, too, and you can get that any season of the year.”

“Yes, that is a good one,” Lope agreed. “And the song of the cow is much less melodious than that of the linnet or greenfinch.”