Ruled Britannia (45 page)

“The song of the cow,
señor
?” Diego asked. Before de Vega could answer, his servant shook his head. “No, don't tell me. I don't think I want to know. It must be something only poets can hear.”

“Not at all, Diego.” Lope smiled sweetly. “For example, whenever you open your mouth, everyone around you is treated to the song of the jackass.”

“Oh, I am wounded,” Diego moaned. He clutched at his heart. “I have taken a mortal thrust. Send for the physician. No, send for the priest to shrive me, for I am surely slain.”

“You are surely a nuisance, is what you are,” Lope said, but he couldn't help laughing.

No more than a mile or so separated Westminster from London, with the space between the two cities only a bit less crowded than either one of them. De Vega never had the sensation of truly being out in the country, as he would have while traveling between a couple of towns in Spain. Whenever he looked to the left, a forest of sails on the Thames reminded him how brash and busy this part of the world was.

“Fancy houses,” Diego remarked as they rode into Westminster. “You can tell this is a place for rich people. All the poor men—all the honest men—are back in London.”

Lope couldn't help laughing at that, either, but for a rather different reason. London drew the ambitious, the hungry, the desperate from all over England. A lot of them discovered that, no matter how ambitious
and desperate they were, they stayed hungry. The hungrier they got, the less likely they were to stay honest. London had more thieves and robbers than any other three cities Lope could imagine.

Those fancy houses drew his eye, too—again, for a different reason. “This is Drury Lane,” he said. “Lord Burghley lives here, who was Elizabeth's chief minister. Anthony Bacon lived here, too, till the accursed sodomite fled the kingdom.”

“Sounds like a good street for a fire,” Diego said. “Just by accident, of course.” He winked.

“I don't know what you're talking about,” Lope answered, deadpan. The two of them exchanged knowing looks.

The Thames bent towards the south. The road followed it. De Vega and Diego rode past a tilt-yard and several new tenements before coming to a large area on their left enclosed by a brick wall. Over the top of the wall loomed the upper stories of some impressive buildings. “What's that?” Diego asked, pointing to the enclosure.

“That? That is Scotland,” Lope said.

Diego scornfully tossed his head. “You can't fool me, boss. You've been scaring me with Scotland for a while now. I know what it is—that kingdom up north of here, the one where the wild men live.”

“Some of the wild men,” Lope amended. “But that yard, that too
is
Scotland.” He crossed himself to show he was telling the truth. “When the King of the wild men comes to visit England, he is housed there, and so it took its name.” He wished the present King of Scotland would come to visit England. But, despite honeyed invitations, Protestant James VI was too canny to thrust his head into the Catholic lion's mouth. Lope continued, “And there beyond lies Whitehall, where the company shall perform.”

“Oh, joy,” Diego said.

Whitehall had formerly been a noble's residence. Henry VIII, having taken it for his own, had enlarged it, adding tennis courts, bowling alleys, and another tilt-yard, with a second-story gallery from which he and his companions might observe the sport. Elizabeth had also watched jousts from that gallery, but neither Isabella nor her consort Albert much favored them. A wooden stage, not much different from that of the Theatre, had gone up on the tilt-yard, in front of the gallery. The highest-ranking English and Spanish grandees would view
El mejor mozo de España
from the comfort of the gallery. The rest, prominent enough to be invited but not enough to keep company with the Queen
and King, would impersonate the groundlings who packed the theatres out beyond London's walls. They didn't have to pay a penny for the privilege, though.

In the makeshift tiring room behind the stage, players donned costumes, put on makeup, and mumbled their lines, trying to hold them in their memory. When Lope came in, Catalina Ibañez rushed up to him. “Oh,
Señor
de Vega, God help me, I'm so nervous!” she cried. “I want to explode!”

He glanced around to make sure Don Alejandro was out in the audience and not hovering backstage here, then leaned forward and gave her a kiss that might have seemed careless. “Don't you worry about a thing, sweetheart. You'll be wonderful!” he told her, and sent up a quick, silent prayer that he'd prove right.

A lackey rushed into the tiring room. “The Queen and King have taken their places in the gallery,” he said.

“Then we'd better perform for them, hadn't we?” Lope said. “Come on, my friends, show them what you can do.” He looked around again, to make sure everyone was ready. “Diego, in the name of God, don't fall asleep now!”

“I wasn't falling asleep,” Diego said. “I was only—”

“Resting my eyes,” Lope finished for him. “You've used that one before. Don't use it again, unless you want to get to know the real Scotland, not the yard here.” One last quick, worried look. Then he nodded to Catalina Ibañez and one of her maidservants, who would open the play as Isabella and Doña Juana, her lady-in-waiting.

Catalina crossed herself. Her maidservant giggled. They went out onto the stage. The audience, which had been mumbling and buzzing, gave them its ears. As soon as Catalina Ibañez got on stage, she was fine—better than fine. Lope breathed a sigh of relief.

Everything went as well as he'd hoped. Everything, in fact, went better than he'd dared hope. The actors remembered their lines. Even the most wooden ones delivered them with some feeling. Diego made a better servant on stage than he ever had for real. An hour and a half flew by as if in a dream. The applause for the players was thunderous.

From the tiring room, Lope heard Catalina Ibañez call, “And here is the man who gave us these golden words to say: Senior Lieutenant Lope Félix de Vega Carpio!”

More applause as Lope, who felt as if he were dreaming himself, came out onto the stage and bowed to the audience—especially to the
central gallery, where Isabella and Albert of England sat. How had Catalina learned his full name? No time to wonder about that now; Queen Isabella was calling, “Well done,
Señor
de Vega. You are a very clever fellow.” Lope bowed again. Isabella tossed him a small leather purse. He caught it out of the air. It was heavy, heavy enough to be stuffed with gold. He bowed once more, this time almost double. Dazedly, he followed the company offstage.

Back in the tiring room, he went over to Catalina Ibañez and said, “How can I thank you for calling me out there?”

Her eyes were as warm with promise as an early summer morning. “If you're as clever as Queen Isabella says,
Señor
de Vega, I'm sure you'll think of something,” she purred. Only later did he wonder whether she was really looking at him or at the purse he'd just got.

 

S
AM
K
ING CAME
up to Shakespeare in the parlor of the lodgings they shared. A little shyly, he said, “I have somewhat for you, Master Will.” He held out his hand and gave Shakespeare three pennies—two stamped with the visages of Isabella and Albert, the third an older coin of Elizabeth's.

“Gramercy,” Shakespeare said in surprise. Up till now, King hadn't had enough money for himself, let alone to pay back anyone else. Shakespeare had almost forgotten the threepence he'd given the younger man for a supper, and certainly hadn't expected to see it again.

But, a touch of pride in his voice, King said, “I pay what I owe, I do.”

“Right glad am I to hear't,” Shakespeare answered. “You've found work, then?”

“You might say so.” But King's nod seemed intended to convince himself at least as much as to convince Shakespeare. “Ay, sir, you might say so.”

“And what manner of work is't, pray tell?”

No sooner were the words out of his mouth than Shakespeare wished he had them back. Had Sam King landed an apprenticeship with a carpenter or a bricklayer, he would have shouted the news to the skies, and would have deserved to. As things were . . . As things were, he turned red. “I am . . . stalled to the rogue,” he replied at last.

“Are you?” Shakespeare tried to sound happy for the man who slept in the same room as he did. For someone on his own and hungry in
London, even being formally initiated as a beggar had to seem a step up. Carefully, the poet went on, “God grant men be generous to you.”

He wondered how long they would stay generous. King was young and healthy, even if on the scrawny side. A beggar with one leg or a missing eye or some other injury or ailment that inspired pity might have a better chance at pennies and ha'pennies and farthings. But King smiled and said, “There are all manner of cheats to pry the bite from a gentry cove, or from your plain cuffin, too. I've a cleym, now, fit to make a man spew an he see it.”

“Have you indeed?” Shakespeare wasn't surprised to hear that. He'd known other beggars who used false sores to get money from those who saw them.

“Ay, sir,” Sam King said. “And the moe I learn the art, the better the living I shall have of it.” Yes, he might almost have been speaking of carpentry or bricklaying.

“May it be so,” Shakespeare said, as politely as he could. He wished the other man would go away. He gave beggars coins now and again, and did not care to think of them as frauds.

King, though, bubbled with enthusiasm for his new trade. “I take crowfoot, spearwort, and salt, and, bruising these together, I lay them upon the place of the body I wish to make sore,” he said, grinning. “The skin by this means being fretted, I first clap a linen cloth, till it stick fast, which plucked off, the raw flesh hath ratsbane thrown upon it, to make it look ugly; and then cast over that a cloth, which is always bloody and filthy.”

Shakespeare's stomach lurched, as it might have in a small boat on rough water. Fascinated in spite of himself, he asked, “But doth your flesh not from such rude usage take true hurt?”

“Nay, nay.” Sam King shook his head. “I do't so often, that in the end I feel no pain, neither desire I to have it healed, but I will travel with my great cleym from market to market, being able by my maunding to get quite five shillings in a week, in money and in corn.”

“No wonder you could repay me, then,” Shakespeare remarked. Five shillings a week wouldn't make a man rich, but he wouldn't starve on such earnings, either.

“No wonder at all,” King agreed happily. “I company with two or three other artificial palliards, and we sing out boldly, thus. . . .” His voice rose to a shrill, piercing whine: “Ah, the worship of God look out with your merciful eyne! One pitiful look upon sore, lame, grieved,
impotent people, sore troubled with the grievous disease, and we have no rest day nor night by the canker and worm, that continually eateth the flesh from the bone! For the worship of God, one cross of your small silver, to buy us salve and ointment, to ease the poor wretched body, that never taketh rest; and God reward you for it in heaven!”

Jane Kendall hurried into the parlor. “Begone! We want no beggars here,” she began, and then checked herself. “Oh, 'tis you, Master King. Methought you some other tricksy wretch seeking to beguile silver by cleyms and other frauds. I'll not have such doings in this house. I know better.”

She didn't mind if King begged elsewhere. She simply didn't want her lodgers tricked out of money that might otherwise assure her of her rent. Having dwelt in her house some little while, Shakespeare was certain of that. He said, “Fear not. He did but learn me his law, the which is indeed most quaint and bene.”

“We'll say no more about it, then.” The Widow Kendall heaved a sigh. “This place is not what it was—by my halidom, it is not. That I should have lodging here, all at the same time, a beggar and a witch and a poet . . .” She shook her head.

Shakespeare resented being lumped together with Sam King and Cicely Sellis. A moment's reflection, though, told him they might resent being lumped together with him. He said, “So that we pay what you require on the appointed day, where's your worry, Mistress Kendall?”

“So that you do, all's well,” she answered. “But with such trades . . . Sweet Jesu, who ever heard of a rich poet?”

She could imagine a rich beggar. She could imagine a cunning woman with money. A poet? No. Shakespeare was tempted to brag of the gold he'd got from Lord Burghley and Don Diego. He was tempted, for a good half a heartbeat. Then common sense prevailed. The best way to keep from being robbed or having his throat slit was not to let on he had anything worth stealing.

Mommet stalked into the parlor. The cat rubbed the side of its head against Shakespeare's ankle and began to purr. A little uncomfortably, Shakespeare stroked it. The cunning woman's cat—her familiar?—had seemed to like him from their first meeting. What would an inquisitor on the trail of witchcraft make of that? Nothing good, Shakespeare was sure.

Sam King said, “Mistress Kendall, may I take a mug of your fine ale?” At her nod, King hurried into the kitchen. When he came back
with the mug, mischief lit his face. He squatted by Mommet and poured out a little puddle on the floor.