Ruled Britannia (50 page)

“Yes. Most unfortunately. I saw the corpse,” Captain Guzmán said. “When you fight a man, you don't do things by halves, do you, Senior Lieutenant?”

“Sir, he came at me bellowing like a bull. If I hadn't fought to kill, he would have killed me,” Lope replied. That was not only true, it was what he had to say to keep himself safe. Guzmán's respect, though, however reluctantly granted, warmed him, for his superior was a formidable man with a rapier in his hand. De Vega added, “He was good with a blade—very quick, very strong, very clean—but purely a school fighter.”

“Ah.” Captain Guzmán nodded. “So that's how it was, eh? No, you don't learn those strokes in school. You learn them when you put your life on the line—or else you don't, as Don Alejandro didn't.”

“What will become of me,
señor
?” Lope asked.

“Well,
I
believe your story—or most of it, anyhow,” Guzmán answered. “As far as I'm concerned, you remain on duty. But you must
understand, when you kill a nobleman the matter doesn't end with your immediate superior.”

“Yes, sir,” Lope said resignedly.

“It could be worse, you know,” Baltasar Guzmán told him. “You could have killed de Recalde back in Spain. Then you wouldn't have to worry about your superiors alone. You'd have everyone in his clan hot for your blood, and all his friends, too. He doesn't have many kinsmen here in England, and he wasn't here long enough to make a lot of friends.”

“No doubt you're right, sir.” The same thing had occurred to Lope. “Is there anything more, sir?”

“Not from me, as I told you. But I also tell you something else: if you fall head over heels in love with Catalina Ibañez in the next few weeks, tongues will wag. I don't suppose anyone will be able to prove a thing, but tongues
will
wag.”

“Nothing I can do about that, your Excellency,” Lope replied.

“You could try keeping away from her,” Captain Guzmán said. Lope stood mute. Guzmán sighed. “No point to puncturing a man if you can't enjoy yourself afterwards: is that what you're thinking?”

“Your Excellency, do you question my honor?” Lope asked, very softly.

Had Guzmán said yes, things would have taken a different turn. But the captain impatiently shook his head. “No, no, no, by no means. The Ibañez is only a mistress, not a wife. How can anyone lose honor over a mistress? But even the touchiest man will see there is a difference between honor and gossip and scandal.”

“Very well,
señor
. I thank you for the advice.”

Guzmán sighed. “By which you mean you have no intention of taking it. Well, you've already proved you're not shy about carving a man so the undertakers can't pretty him up. That will make some people think twice. Go on, get back to work, but bear in mind you may be summoned by others besides me.”

Sure enough, Lope was in his room working on a report of doings at the Theatre when Enrique knocked on his door. Captain Guzmán's servant said, “Begging your pardon, Senior Lieutenant, but my principal has just received an order from Don Diego Flores de Valdés at Westminster. You are to report to him at once for questioning in the matter of Don Alejandro.”

“Thank you, Enrique.” Lope sighed and rose from the stool where
he'd perched. “I'll go, of course.” What else could he do when summoned by the commandant of Spanish forces in England?

As he was heading out of the barracks, his own servant came up the corridor towards him. “
Señor
, there is an English constable outside, a man named Strawberry.” He said it with care. “He would speak to you. So says a soldier who knows a little English.”

“A constable?” De Vega shook his head. “I am called before Don Diego Flores de Valdés. I have no time for this no-account Englishman now. I would have no time for the Queen and King of England now. Go back and tell the fellow, whoever he is, that I am very sorry, but I will have to see him some other day.”

“I speak no English!” Diego wailed.

“Well, get that soldier again, then,” Lope said impatiently, hurrying off towards the stables. “You found out what the constable wanted. He can find out what you want.”

When he rode off towards Westminster, he got a glimpse of his servant and a large, middle-aged Englishman standing nose to nose in the street, each shouting at the other, neither understanding a word the other said. Maybe the English-speaking soldier had gone away. Lope smiled. Diego needed such exercise to keep his blood flowing. As for the other man, that Strawberry . . . Well, who cared about an English constable, anyhow?

Once Lope got to Westminster, he had to find Don Diego Flores de Valdés' office, which he'd visited only once. He knew he was getting close when someone called out to him: a thin, weedy, pockmarked Englishman who wore spectacles. “Oh,
Señor
Phelippes,” Lope said, glad to see a face he knew. “The commandant's chamber is along this corridor, is it not?”

“Yes, that's right,” Phelippes answered. Where Lope had spoken English, he used his fluent Spanish, finishing, “Congratulations on the skill of your right hand.” His own right hand, still clutching a quill, made cut-and-thrust motions.

“For which I thank you.” De Vega did his best to keep laughter off his face. He had a hard time imagining a man less dangerous than Thomas Phelippes. Hurrying up the corridor, he found Don Diego also scribbling away at something. He waited till the Spanish commandant look up from his work, then saluted. “I report as ordered, your Excellency.”

“So you do. Come in, Senior Lieutenant, come in.” Don Diego
drummed his fingers on the desk. He pointed to a stool in front of it. “Sit, if you care to. So you've had more woman trouble, have you?”

“Well . . .” Lope saw no way out of that one. “Yes, your Excellency,” he said reluctantly.

“You'll get talked about, killing a social superior,” Don Diego remarked.

“No doubt. But I preferred that to letting him kill me.”

“Yes, I can see how you might. Don Alejandro was not the brightest man I ever saw, but he was brave, and we'll miss him. We haven't enough Spaniards here as is; we can't afford to kill each other.”

“Yes, your Excellency,” Lope said. “Better you tell me that, though, than that you tell him.”

“He wouldn't agree with you—but then, he's not here to ask, is he?” Don Diego drummed his fingers again. “By your account, by his mistress' account, it was a fair fight.” Those fingers went up and down, up and down. “The Ibañez woman, I'm sure, is great fun in bed. But damn me, Senior Lieutenant, if she's worth a man in his grave. She'll be as faithless to you as she was to Don Alejandro, and sooner, for he had more money to spend on her than you do.”

No matter how infatuated with her Lope was, that held the unpleasant ring of truth. “I'll take my chances, your Excellency,” he replied, for want of anything better.

“So you will,” the Spanish commandant agreed. “So you do.” He scowled. “Go on, get out of here. You have to keep an eye on the Englishmen at the Theatre. The good Lord only knows what they're planning, but it's something. I need a hound to smell out treachery. For that, you'll do. And a man who knows how to handle a blade is always an asset, too. Through the eye!
¡Madre de Dios!
”

“Your Excellency, with a life on the line, one does what one must do,” Lope said.

“Yes. And that is why I am sending you back to your duty at the Theatre,” Don Diego said. His long face was made to show sorrow, and it did now. “We will need you, we will need the play, before long. Word just here from Spain is that it is doubtful his Most Catholic Majesty shall leave his bed again. His doctors dare not move him, even to change the linen on his mattress. The end approaches.” He crossed himself.

So did Lope de Vega. “I shall do all I can to ensure that he has his monument here,” Lope said. “You may rely on me, sir.”

“I do, Senior Lieutenant,” Don Diego Flores de Valdés told him.
“That is why you are returning. For I still fear treason from the Theatre. I want you there to stop it.”

“I've seen no sign of it,” Lope said. “But if it rears its ugly head, I'll tear it out, root and branch.”

 

I
N THE UPPER
gallery of the Theatre, the tireman's helper who did duty as a lookout started whistling “A Man's Yard.” At once, the players who had been Romans and Britons hacking away at one another shifted positions and became Spaniards and Englishmen hacking away at one another. “By God!” Richard Burbage snarled at Shakespeare. “Is he here again?” He glared at the poet as if it were his fault.

Shakespeare spread his hands. “I did not bid him come.”

“Unbidden guests are often welcomest when they are gone,” Burbage said. “But of late he is never gone. How can we rehearse
Boudicca
under the eyes of a don? He bleeds us of time like a leech of blood, save that a leech may heal, whilst he doth only harm.”

“I cannot mend it—and say not the name, never no moe,” Shakespeare added. “He hath the Latin to know whence it comes and what it portends.” In strode Lope. He wasn't very tall, but swaggered like a giant. Shakespeare smiled and waved to him. “Welcome!” he lied. “Give you good day.”

“And a good morrow to you,” de Vega answered, advancing towards the stage. He surveyed the struggling players with a critical eye. “Many of these would die quickly, did they take the field in earnest.”

“They are not soldiers. They but personate them,” Shakespeare said.

“But their personation wants persuasion,” Lope said. Shakespeare glanced towards Burbage. Ever so slightly, the player nodded. He'd been a soldier, and knew whereof Lope spoke.

“A soldier's eye may discern the flaws, but will the generality?” Shakespeare asked.

“Those of them have fought in war will know they see no war upon the stage,” Lope told him.

“We shall do what we can.” Shakespeare did his best to hide a sigh. He didn't think de Vega noticed. Burbage did, and smiled. Shakespeare asked the question uppermost in his, uppermost in everyone's, mind: “How fares his Most Catholic Majesty?”

“He fares not well at all.” De Vega's handsome face looked old and worn, as if he were speaking of his own dying father. “As I have said
before, he is bedridden. The least movement pains him to the marrow. His sores advance apace. When the surgeons cut them to loose the pus, it hath a vile stench. He is dropsical—more so by the day, they say. And yet his heart is strong. He fails, but fails by degrees.”

All over the stage, players nodded. Most men had watched deaths like that, as well as the quicker, easier, more merciful kind. Signing himself with the cross, Shakespeare said, “God grant him ease from suffering.”

“May it be so.” Lope also crossed himself. “It likes me to watch the work here advance.”

“I had liefer see
King Philip
go unproduced,” Shakespeare said.

De Vega made a leg at him. “You are gracious, Master Shakespeare, to say so.”

I am an ordinary ramping fool, with no more brain than a stone
, Shakespeare thought. Lope de Vega had taken him to mean he wanted Philip II to live forever. That was how he'd meant to be taken. But the Spaniard could have taken his words another way, as meaning he wanted to see some other play go on in place of
King Philip
. And he did. But to let Lieutenant de Vega know that would have meant nothing but catastrophe.

Burbage had noticed the same thing. With a growl that might have come from the throat of a bear chained to the pole in the baiting pit, he said, “You
will
make show of your wit, eh?”

“Wherefore should he not?” Lope asked. “Would you ask a poet to hide his wit? Would you ask a woman to hide her beauty?”

“A poet's wit may lead him into danger,” Shakespeare said. “And a woman's beauty may likewise lead her—and him that sees her—into danger. Or would you say otherwise?”

Burbage suddenly brightened. Shakespeare couldn't resist preening a little, proud of his own cleverness. If anything could make Lope turn away from untoward meanings, thinking of himself and his brush with death ought to do it. The Spaniard's hand fell to the hilt of his rapier. A few inches of the blade slid from the sheath as he struck a pose. “Danger knows full well that Lope is more dangerous than he.”

His strutting would have seemed laughable had he not just killed a man. As things were, he'd earned the right to swagger. “Beauty itself doth of itself persuade the eyes of men without an orator,” Shakespeare said. “Will you bring to the Theatre the beauty hath ensnared you, that we all may marvel and envy you for your conquest?”

“Alas, no, I fear me, for she speaks not your tongue,” Lope replied.

Will Kemp chose that moment to come out of the tiring room. The clown gave Lope a courtier's bow exaggerated to absurdity. “Whether she speak or no, doth her tongue not please you?” he inquired.

Maybe the Spaniard wouldn't understand just what Kemp meant. So Shakespeare hoped. Lope's English, while good, wasn't perfect. But it was good enough, and he did. “How dare you have her tongue in your mouth?” he snarled, and made as if to draw the rapier again.