Ruled Britannia

by Harry Turtledove

  "Why, as much as you like, my lord," Shakespeare answered. The nobleman looked pleased, till he went on, "If it suit you to have presented a clumsy, aborted botch of a show, we'll dispense with rehearsal altogether. But such a play, wherein we're hissed and pelted from the stage, meseems would serve your ends less well than you desire."

  A wordless rumble came from deep within Lord Burghley's chest. "You show me a sea of troubles, Master Shakespeare. How arm we against them? Here you must be my guide: you, not I, are the votary of this mystery."

  "I see no sure way," Shakespeare told him, wishing he could say something different. "What seems best is this: to sound the players one by one, in such wise that I give not the game away should a man prefer the Spaniards-or even simple quiet-to daring the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune."

  "And if one of them be a cozener or an intelligencer?" Nick Skeres asked. Sure enough, he took conspiracy and betrayal for granted. "How shall you hinder him from sending the lot of you to the block or the gallows or such delightsome toys as only a Spaniard would think to devise?"

  "Such is the risk inherent in the exercise," Lord Burghley remarked.

  You can say that, Shakespeare thought resentfully. You'll likely be dead ere we're well begun. And the nobleman would die in his own time, having lived a long life. But if the players were found out. Skeres had the right of it. Such delightsome toys. He shuddered. He was not a particularly brave man.

  Counterfeiting courage on the stage, he'd seldom needed it in humdrum everyday life.

  "Would you see England free again?" Burghley asked softly.

  Ay, there's the rub, Shakespeare thought. Every hamlet in the land dreamt of England free again. He found himself nodding. He could do nothing else.

  "Then we'll find ways and means, find them or make them." The baron sounded perfectly confident.

  Again, Shakespeare silently fumed. But what can I do save go forward? He'd already heard enough to make him a dead man if he didn't sing to the Spaniards- and if things miscarry, he reminded himself. If all go well, they'll make of you a hero.

  He had trouble believing it.

  Sir William Cecil briskly rubbed his hands together. "We are in accord, then-is't not so?" Shakespeare nodded, still rather less than happily. The nobleman smiled at him. "Commence as quickly as may be. The sooner the play is done, the sooner the players have their parts by heart, the better. Only God knows how long Philip-and Elizabeth-will live. We must be ready."

  Shakespeare didn't scream, but he came close. "My lord," he said carefully, "I am now engaged upon preparing a new play for the company, and-"

  "This hath greater weight behind it," Burghley said.

  Again, screams bubbled just below the surface. "Your Grace, if I cease work upon a play half done, who will not wonder why? Were it not best that I draw no questions to myself?"

  "You quibble," Burghley said ominously.

  "By God, sir, I do not," Shakespeare answered. "And here's the rest of't: Lord Westmorland's Men will pay me for Love's Labour's Won, and pay me well. Who'll pay me for this Roman tragedy? A poet lives not upon sweet breezes and moonbeams; he needs must eat and drink like any man."

  "Ah." Burghley nodded. Taking from his belt a small leather sack, he tossed it to Shakespeare, who caught it out of the air. It was heavier than he'd expected. When he undid the drawstring, gold glinted within. His eyes must have widened, for William Cecil let loose another of his wet chuckles. "There's fifty pound," he said carelessly. "An you require more, Nick Skeres will have't for you."

  "G-Gramercy," Shakespeare choked out. He'd never made anywhere near so much for a play; most of his income came from his share of the Theatre's takings. He also eyed Skeres. Any sum of money that came through the sharp little man would probably be abridged before reaching its intended destination.

  Skeres stared back, bland as butter.

  "Have we finished here?" Baron Burghley asked. Numbly, Shakespeare nodded. When he got to his feet, his legs, at first, didn't want to hold him up. Burghley said, "Get you gone, Master Shakespeare. I'll away anon. We should not be seen entering or leaving together, nor should you come to my house, though it be nigh. I am here on pretense of waiting on my nephews, Anthony and Francis Bacon."

  "Do I meet them on repairing hither another time, know they of this our enterprise?" Shakespeare inquired.

  Sir William Cecil looked through him as if he hadn't asked the question. Chuckling, Nick Skeres said,

  "Any cokes can see you're new to the game. What you know not, e'en the bastinado can't squeeze from you."

  Shakespeare made a noise down deep in his throat, nothing close to a word: "Urrr." Skeres might call it a game, but games didn't kill. Some do, Shakespeare corrected himself: baiting the bear or the bull. He could almost feel fangs tearing into him.

  Still shaking his head, he left the house in Drury Lane. He was halfway home before realizing no one had said anything about how Nick Skeres would return to London. He shrugged. Skeres, he was sure, would prove as slippery and evasive as a black-beetle or a rat. He wished he could say the same for himself.

  III

  Lope De Vega waved to a tall, scrawny Englishman in ragged clothes who stood, as hopefully as he could, by a rowboat. "You there, sirrah!" he said sharply. "How much to row us across to Southwark?"

  He pointed to the far bank of the Thames.

  "Tuppence, sir," the fellow answered, making a clumsy botch of his bow. "A penny each for you and your lady."

  "Here, then." Lope gave him two bronze coins. "Put us ashore as near to the bear-baiting garden as you may."

  "To the old one, or the new?" the boatman asked.

  "To the new," de Vega replied.

  "Yes, sir. I'll do't." The Englishman smiled at his companion. "Mind your step as you get in, my lady."

  "Have no fear, my dear, my sweet," Lope said grandly, and gave Nell Lumley his arm. She smiled as she took it. She was as tall as he, blond and buxom, and called herself a widow for politeness' sake, though de Vega doubted she'd ever wed. But she was fond of him, and he always enjoyed squiring a pretty woman around. He expected to enjoy lying with her afterwards, too. Cold country, hot blood, he thought; Englishwomen had pleasantly surprised him.

  And he enjoyed the feeling of being half, or a little more than half, in love. It heated his own blood, as a cup of wine would. As often as not, he discarded one mistress and chose another for no more reason-

  but also, he told himself, for no less reason-than to have that sweet intoxication singing through his veins.

  So now: he swept off his cloak, folded it a couple of times, and set it on the bench for Nell. She wagged a finger at him. "Ah, Lope, my sweetheart, thou needst not do that."

  "I do't not for that I need to," he answered. "I do't for that I want to. Sit, sit, sit, sit." He clucked like a mother hen. Laughing, she sat.

  The boatman pushed the rowboat into the Thames, then scrambled aboard himself, his boots dripping.

  He knew how to handle the oars, feathering them so next to no water dripped from the blades. They hadn't gone far when Nell Lumley wrinkled her short, pert nose. "By Jesu, the river stinks." A dead dog, all puffy and bloated, chose that moment to float past them, heading downstream.

  "How can it help stinking?" Lope replied. "It is London's sewer. And London stinks. What city stinks not? The city of heaven, mayhap, proving angels dwell therein."

  Of course, folk downstream drank the water into which folk farther upstream poured their shit and piss and offal. Lope knew that. He'd always known it. How could he, how could anyone, help knowing it?

  But it wasn't anything he usually thought about. He took it for granted, as anyone did. Now, bobbing on the stinking stream, he couldn't. He gulped.

  " 'Steeth, lean over the side or ever you cast!" the boatman exclaimed.

  And put more filth in the river, de Vega thought. He clamped his teeth together. In a little while, the sick spell passed. Nell said, "If passage over the Thames makes the
e like to sick up thy dinner, what of coming here in the Invincible Armada?"

  Remembering the passage from Lisbon to Dover almost did make him lose his last meal. He patted his mistress' hand and gave her the prettiest lie he could come up with: "The company I keep here makes me forget all that chanced before I set foot on England's shore."

  Nell Lumley blushed and stammered. The boatman, sweat starting out under his arms despite the chilly weather, made a distinct retching noise. Lope shot him a hard look. He stared back, only effort on his face. Nell didn't seem to have noticed. Lope let it pass-for the moment. Englishmen were rude by nature.

  The boat's keel grated on mud less than a furlong west of London Bridge. "Southwark, sir," the boatman said, as smoothly as if he hadn't been insolent a moment before. He pointed. "There's the new bear-baiting garden-you can see it past the roofs of the stews."

  "Yes. Thank you." De Vega handed Nell out of the boat. He tipped the boatman only a farthing. True, the fellow had rowed well, but he didn't intend to forget the way the man had mocked his compliment.

  Without a word, the boatman pocketed the small coin. Without a word, he shoved his boat into the Thames and started rowing back toward London. And then, out of range of Lope's rapier, he let fly:

  "Leather-jerkin, crystal-button, knot-pated, agate-ring, puke-stocking, caddis-garter, smooth-tongue Spanish pouch!"

  No matter how useless it was, Lope's hand flew to the hilt of his sword. Nell giggled, which did nothing to improve his temper. She said, "Fret not. He's jealous, nothing more."

  "And so he hath good reason to be," Lope answered, mollified, "for am I not the luckiest man alive in Christendom?"

  "Ah," Nell said softly, and dropped her eyes.

  They had to walk down a street of stews to get to the bear-baiting. Even though de Vega went arm in arm with his companion, the lewd women called out invitations that made his ears burn. Pretending he didn't hear, he kept walking.

  "He wants you not," one of the women called to another, "for see you? He hath already a whore of his own."

  Where Lope had been angry at the boatman, Nell was furious at the prostitute. "Stinking, poxy callet!"

  she yelled. "I bite the thumb at thee!" That was the thee of insult, not of intimacy.

  The contents of a chamber pot came flying out of a third-story window and splashed in the street just in front of them. Fortunately, most of the splash went the other way; Lope and Nell weren't badly fouled.

  Nell was still fuming. "Henry VIII closed the stews," she said, "nor did they open again until the coming of. Queen Isabella and King Albert."

  In different company, she might have said something hot about the Spaniards, Lope thought. But he said only, "King Henry may have closed these stews, but surely, in a town the size of London, others flourished."

  "That they dared cast whoredom in my face. " But Nell didn't directly answer Lope's comment, from which he concluded she couldn't very well disagree with him.

  They hurried on toward the bear garden. A long queue of Englishmen and — women of all estates, leavened by a sprinkling of Spaniards, advanced toward the entry. The building was an oval that put de Vega in mind of a Roman amphitheater, though built of wood and not enduring stone. Inside, dogs were already barking and growling furiously.

  At the entryway, Lope gave the fellow taking money a pair of pennies. The Englishman waved him forward. At the stairs farther on, most people went up. He handed fourpence to the man waiting there with another cash box. The man gave him a professionally courteous nod. "Want to be in at the death, eh?" he said. "Go on down, then, and find places for yourselves as close to the pit as ye may."

  "There!" Nell pointed. A few spaces remained in the very lowest row of benches. "If we hurry-" Now she led Lope, not the other way round. She went so fast, she tripped on the hem of her skirt as she hurried down the stairs. She might have fallen had he not held her up. "Gramercy," she said, and kissed him on the cheek.

  An Englishman and his wife and their young son were making for the same seats. They gave Lope and Nell sour looks when they found themselves edged out. The man, a big, burly fellow, muttered something into his beard. "Nay, hush," said his wife, whose pinched face bore what looked to be a perpetually worried expression. "Beshrew me if he be not a don."

  "He's a thief, that's what he is," the man rumbled. "He'd steal an egg out of a cloister, he would, like all his breed." But he went off and found seats for himself and his family a good distance away from de Vega.

  Lope looked back over his shoulder and bared his teeth in what was as much a challenge as a smile. The Englishman would not meet his eye. Lope nodded to himself, proud as a fighting cock that hadn't had to use his spurs to beat a rival.

  Down in the pit, the first bear was already chained to the stout iron stake in the center of the earthen floor. He was a good-sized beast, and didn't look too badly starved. His hot, rank odor filled Lope's nostrils. The mastiffs, still caged, smelled him, too. Their barking grew more frantic by the moment.

  The Englishman sitting next to Lope nudged him and said, "Half a crown on old bruin there to slay before they kill him six dogs or more. If you like, a crown."

  Lope eyed him. He wasn't all that well dressed; five shillings-even two and sixpence-would be a lot of money for him. And he looked a little too eager, a little too confident. Men who knew too much about bears and dogs were the bane of the garden, cheating those without inside information. "I thank you, but no," de Vega said. "I'm here for to watch the fight, no more." The Englishman looked disappointed, but Lope had declined too politely for him to make anything of it.

  "A cozener?" Nell asked in a low voice.

  "Without a doubt," Lope answered.

  A wineseller moved through the crowd. Nell waved to him. Lope bought a cup for her and one for himself.

  He looked around the arena. It was almost full now. Before long, they would. He couldn't even finish the thought before they did. One man with a lever could lift the movable sides of all the mastiffs' cages at once. Baying like the wolves their cousins, the great dogs swarmed into the baiting pit.

  One died almost at once, his neck broken by a shrewd buffet from the bear's great paw. The rest of the mastiffs, more furious than ever, leaped at the bear, clamping their jaws to his leg, his haunch, his belly, his ear. Roaring almost like a lion, he rolled in the dirt, crushing another animal beneath him. A couple of other mastiffs sprang free before his weight fell on them. Muzzles already red with blood, they sprang back into the fight.

  "Oh, bravely done!" Nell Lumley cried from behind Lope. She clapped her hands. Her eyes glistened.

  "Tear him to pieces!"

  Nor was hers the only voice raised in the bear garden. Shouts of, "Kill him!" and, "Bite him!" rose from all three levels. So did yells of, "Rend the dogs!" and, "Rip 'em to rags!" Some of those surely came from folk who'd put money on the bear. But the English, seeing one animal chained and attacked by ten, were perversely likely to take him into their hearts, at least for a little while.

  As if by accident, de Vega let his hand rest on Nell's thigh. She stared at him in surprise; she might have forgotten he was there. Her cheeks were flushed, her lips slightly swollen. She set her hand on his. He smiled and kissed her. The noise she made at the back of her throat was almost as fierce as the ones coming from the pit. Lope laughed a little when they finally broke apart. Bear- and bull-baitings always made her wanton.

  Three dogs were dead now, and a couple of others badly hurt. But blood dripped and poured from the bear everywhere. He wobbled on his feet; a pink loop of gut protruded from his belly. His grunts and bellows came slower and weaker. "He'll not last," Lope said. Nell nodded without looking at him-she had eyes only for the pit.

  As if directed by a single will, all the mastiffs left alive, even the injured ones, sprang at the bear. As their teeth pierced him, Nell groaned as if Lope were piercing her. The bear fought back for a moment, but then sank beneath the dogs. The din in the arena all but deafen
ed de Vega.

  The shabby Englishman sitting next to him nudged him again. "See you? You'd have won. He slew but four, unless that fifth be too much hurt to live."

  Lope said, "Such is life," a remark that gave the other man no room to comment.

  Dog handlers in thick leather jerkins and breeches came out to drive the mastiffs back into their cages.

  They needed the bludgeons they carried to get the big dogs off the bear's carcass. Once the dogs were out of the pit, an ass that rolled its eyes at the stink of blood dragged away the body. It would be butchered, and the meat sold.

  "Hast thou eaten of bear's flesh?" Lope asked Nell.

  She nodded. "Seldom, but yes. Mighty fine it was, too: sweet as pork, tender as lamb."

  "I thought the same," Lope said. "I ate it once or twice in Spain. Were bears common as cattle, who would look at beef?"

  More attendants raked the ground and spread sand and fresh dirt over the pools of blood. The first bear-baiting might never have happened. So Lope's senses said, at any rate. But when the handlers brought the next bear out to the stake, the lingering scent of blood in the air made him so wild, he almost broke free of them.

  A fresh pack of mastiffs assailed the bear. He was smaller than the one that had fought before, but seemed wilier. He rolled again and again, and hunched himself so the dogs had trouble reaching his belly and privates. Mastiff after mastiff went down. Another one dragged itself out of the fight on stiff forelegs, its back broken. A handler smashed in its head with a club.

  "He'll kill them all!" Nell was as happy to cheer for the bear as she had been to clap for the dogs in the first fight.

  And the new bear did kill them all. As the last mastiff, its throat torn out, staggered off and fell down to die, Lope thought, Most of the bettors want to hang themselves-that hardly ever happens. And the dog breeders, too, with so many expensive animals dead. A whole new pack of mastiffs had to be loosed against the bear. Since it had taken so many wounds from the earlier pack, the baiting ended in a hurry.