Ruled Britannia (58 page)

“Wherefore should he seek to jugulate me?” Marlowe asked.

“Play not the innocent with me, thou false virgin,” Shakespeare said, wondering whether Marlowe were virgin anywhere upon his person. “You know o'ermuch of . . . this and that.” He named no names, not with other people walking in Shoreditch High Street. “You know o'ermuch, and your tongue flaps like drying linen i'the wind. Cause aplenty to see you silent—is't not so?”

“Like drying linen i'the wind? Thou most lying slave!”

“Nay.” Shakespeare shook his head. “By God, Kit, hear me: I tell you the truth.” He clicked his tongue between his teeth in annoyance. He'd automatically come out with a line of blank verse, and not a very good one.

Marlowe noticed the same thing. “And ten low words oft creep in one dull line,” he jeered—more blank verse, with a nasty barb.

“Mock an you would. Mock—but go. Stay and you die the death, if not from the likes of Ingram Frizer, then from the dons. What Cecil knows, belike they'll learn anon. Can you tell me I am mistook?”

They walked along, arguing. “I can tell you I'm fain to stay to see the hand played out,” Marlowe said stubbornly.

“When first you learned the Spaniards dogged you, you nigh wet yourself for fear of 'em,” Shakespeare said. “Then you were wise. This you show forth now, 'tis but a madman's courage. 'Steeth, did you not see you all but trod on de Vega's toes, there amongst the groundlings?”

“I saw him, ay, with yet another trull,” Marlowe said, scorn in his voice. “What of it? He knew me not.”

First the Widow Kendall had doubted Cicely Sellis' chastity. Now Marlowe did the same. Shakespeare hadn't argued with his landlady. He saw little point to correcting Kit, either. Instead, he tried once more to make the other poet see sense: “You are no player here. Being none, lie low, lest you bring yourself to the notice of them who'd lay you low. An you would—an you must—see how the hand plays out, but suffer it not to be played upon your person.”

“The counsel of a craven,” Marlowe said. “I looked for better from you, Will.”

“You will throw your life away, you mad-headed ape. 'Tis pikestaff plain you care not a fig therefor: well, be it so. But in your lunacy will you throw old England away with it?”

“What's old England to me or I to old England, that I should weep for her?” Marlowe seemed genuinely curious.

“Say you so?” Shakespeare clapped a hand to his forehead. “You brought me to this game, marble-pated fiend, and now it likes you not? Fie on you!”

Marlowe laughed. “As though I were a Latin verb, you misconstrue me. For the game I care greatly; 'tis the game lured me back from Margate. I
will
see it played. An I may, I will play it. Ay, the game's the thing. But for England?” He snapped his fingers. “That for old England.” With a nod, he ducked into the doorway of a tenement and disappeared.

Shakespeare started to go after him, then stopped, muttering a curse. What good would it do? None. Less than none, probably. Shakespeare didn't believe Marlowe despised his country, as he said he did. He was all pose, all outrageousness, all shock. But force him to it and he might decide he had to act on his pose. Better to leave him alone and hope he came to his senses on his own.

Better he had not left them
, Shakespeare thought, but then,
Use every man after his desert, and who should 'scape whipping?
That cheery notion uppermost in his mind, he trudged on down towards Bishopsgate.

 

E
NRIQUE STRETCHED OUT
an imploring hand to Lope de Vega. “Senior Lieutenant, you must let me know when you are to play Juan de Idiáquez on the English stage,” Baltasar Guzmán's man said. “I will come to see you, though I still know less of the language than I should.”

“I'll be glad to see you,” de Vega said. “I fear it won't be long.”

“I fear the same. Every ship from Spain brings worse word of his Most Catholic Majesty.” Enrique crossed himself.

So did Lope. For all he knew, King Philip might already have died. Strange to think he would be in his grave back in Spain while here in England, till news of his death arrived, he still ruled.
A play could make something of those twists of time and knowledge
, Lope thought. He wondered how he might shape it.

“God protect the new King when his day comes,” Enrique said.

Lope nodded. “Yes. God protect him indeed.”

He and Enrique shared a glance. They both knew Philip III was not half, was not a quarter, of the man Philip II had been. Neither of them could say such a thing, but saying and knowing were far from the same. Lope feared for Spain in the reign of Philip II's son. He couldn't say that, either. He could pray. He'd done a lot of praying lately.

Or he could try to put his worries out of his mind. He bowed to Enrique almost as respectfully as he would have to Captain Guzmán, then said, “
Hasta luego
. I'm off to Bishopsgate.”

Enrique smiled. “Good luck with your new lady friend, Senior Lieutenant.”

What a pity she is only a friend
, Lope thought, and then,
Well, if God is on my side, I may yet make her more
. To Enrique, he said only, “Thank you very much,” and hurried out of the barracks in the heart of London.

But his little chat with Captain Guzmán's servant delayed him just enough so that, as he was coming out, he nearly bumped into Walter Strawberry, who was coming in. He couldn't escape the man, no matter how much he wanted to. With such grace as he could muster, he smiled and said, “Give you good day, Constable Strawberry.”

“God give you good morrow as well, Lieutenant,” Strawberry replied. “I have heard a thing passing strange, strange as any I have seen, the which, methought, I should bring to your honor's orifice.”

“Say on,” de Vega urged, hoping the Englishman would come to the point—if he had a point—and let him get on his way up to see Cicely Sellis.

In his own fashion, Walter Strawberry did: “Dame Tumor hath it, sir, that Christopher Marlowe, otherwise styling himself one Karl Tuesday, is returned to London and making himself unbeknownst hereabouts.”

Lope stared. That
was
news—if true. “How know you this? Have you seen him?”

“As I told you, not with mine own ears,” the constable answered. “But I have much attestation thereto, from certain of them that share his advice.”

“His advice?” De Vega frowned, wondering what Strawberry was trying to say. Suddenly, a light dawned. “Mean you—?”

“I mean what I say, and not a word of it,” Strawberry declared. “He hath the advice of Gomorrah, wherefrom is he also tumorously said to
suffer from the malediction which hight gomorrhea, or peradventure from the French pox.”

That held enough tangles to hide a swarm of foxes from the hounds, but Lope ruthlessly cut through them: “You have it from catamites and sodomites that Marlowe is returned to London?” He didn't know whether Marlowe was diseased, nor much care. That wasn't his worry, not now.

And Walter Strawberry nodded. “Said I not so?”

“One never knows,” Lope murmured. He clapped the English constable on the shoulder. “You have done me a service to bring this word hither. Believe you me, sir, if Marlowe be in this city, we shall run him to earth. And now, I pray you, forgive, for I must away.” He pushed past Strawberry and out into St. Swithin's Lane.

“But—” Strawberry called after him. He heard no more, for he was hurrying up the street, on his way to Bishopsgate at last. His rapier slapped against his thigh at every step.

His thoughts whirled. How could Marlowe have come back to London when he'd gone to sea? Why
would
he have come back? Knowing Marlowe fairly well, Lope made his own guess about that. Something was stirring, and the Englishman wanted to see it, whatever it was. Marlowe could no more stay away from trouble than bees from flowering clover.
What sort of trouble?
de Vega wondered. One thing immediately sprang to mind: treason.

This means more questions for Shakespeare
, Lope thought unhappily.
If I find him at the lodging-house, I'll ask them now
.

But the old woman who ran the place shook her head when he asked if Shakespeare was there. “Surely you must know, sir, he is gone up to the Theatre, for to earn the bite wherewith his rent—
my
rent—to pay,” she said nervously.

Lope thought about going up to Shoreditch straightaway, but decided it would keep. He had no proof Shakespeare knew anything of Marlowe's return. For that matter, he had no proof Marlowe
had
returned. De Vega hoped Walter Strawberry was wrong, both for Marlowe's sake and because that would mean less trouble lay ahead.

When he knocked on Cicely Sellis' door, she opened it at once. But when she saw him standing there, she started a little, or more than a little. “Oh. Master Lope. I looked for . . . another.”

“For Christopher Marlowe?” de Vega rapped out, suddenly suspicious of everyone around him.

But the cunning woman shook her head. “I know him not,” she said. If she was acting, she proved how fond and foolish England's ban on actresses was. “Why are you come here?”

“To speak with thee,” Lope said, seizing the opportunity.

Her mouth narrowed in exasperation. “Come you in, then,” she said, “but only for a moment, mind.” Though she must have heard him use the intimate pronoun, she didn't follow suit.

As soon as Lope stepped inside, he realized she'd been waiting for a client. Astrological symbols were scrawled on the wall in charcoal, a circle inscribed on the rammed-earth floor. Tall candles burned to either side of the circle. Within it, Mommet scratched behind one ear to rout out a flea, then yawned at the Spaniard, showing needle teeth. It was de Vega's turn to say, “Oh,” as light dawned, and then, “You'd tell a fortune.” He dropped
thou
himself.

“Ay, and for a good price, too, of the which stand I in need,” Cicely Sellis said. “Say what you would and then, I pray you, away. The bird comes anon.”

And you don't want a Spaniard about to frighten him off, whoever he is
, de Vega thought.
Well, fair enough
. Better trusting her intentions, he sighed dramatically and tried again: “I'd speak to thee of love.”

Her smile showed more annoyance than amusement. “I tell you, sir, I've no time for't now. Speak me fair another day, an't please you, and who knows? Haply I will hear you.”

“Haply?” he said, less than delighted at the hedge.

But Cicely Sellis nodded. “Haply,” she repeated, her voice firm. “Would you have me promise more than I may give?”

“By my troth, I'd kiss
thee
with a most constant heart,” Lope said.

She looked harassed. The cat, eerily reflecting her mood as it often did, bared its teeth again. After a moment, though, she said, “A bargain: one kiss, and then you go? If there be more between us, let it wait its proper occasion, which this is not.”

“One kiss, then, lady, and I am hence,” Lope promised. She nodded once more, and stepped forward. He took her in his arms. Having but the one chance, he made the most of it, clasping her to him so their bodies molded to each other. Her mouth was sweet and knowing against his.

The kiss went on and on. At last, though, it had to end. Lope's arms still around her, Cicely Sellis stroked his cheek. But she said only one word: “Farewell.”

“
Aii
, thou'lt tear out my heart like the savage men of New Spain!” Lope cried. She only waited. He thought about the risks of breaking a bargain with a
bruja
—thought about them and found them formidable. Though his lips still glowed from the touch of hers, he bowed stiffly. “Farewell,” he echoed, and, spinning on his heel, strode out of her room and out of the lodging-house.

Storming away, he almost ran into—almost ran over—another man heading for the Widow Kendall's house: a broad-shouldered fellow with a smooth face and with hair cut short. Lope took a step past the man, then froze, remembering what Walter Strawberry had told him. “Marlowe!” he said, and his sword seemed to leap from its sheath into his hand.

Christopher Marlowe whirled. He too wore a rapier. It flashed free. “The fig of Spain!” he shouted. His obscene gesture matched the words.

“Put up!” Lope said. “Put up and give over. You're caught. Even an you beat me, you're known to be in London. How can you hope to win free? Yield you now.”

“I will not.” Marlowe sighed and shook his head. “Base fortune, now I see, that in thy wheel there is a point, to which when men aspire they tumble headlong down.” He seemed to speak more to himself than to de Vega. “That point I touched, and seeing there was no point to mount up higher, why should I grieve at my declining fall?” With no more warning than that, he thrust at Lope's heart.

Lope beat the blade aside. His hand had more to do with his answering stroke than did his brain, though perhaps he remembered his fight with Don Alejandro de Recalde. His point took Marlowe not in the right eye but above it. The English poet let out a shriek that faded almost at once to a rattling gurgle. He fell down in the street, dead as a stone.