Ruled Britannia

by Harry Turtledove

  "If he is to be driven hence, Dick Burbage is the man to do't," the tireman said.

  "I'll speak to him," Shakespeare said at once. The more someone, anyone, else did, the less he would have to do himself, and the less guilty he would feel. He looked down at his hands. They already had Geoffrey Martin's blood on them. He didn't want Tom's there, too. He didn't even want the burden of pushing Tom from Lord Westmorland's Men. He already carried too many burdens.

  Only when he went looking for Burbage did he stop and think about the burdens the other player carried.

  Tom was without a doubt the best boy actor the company had. Once he was gone, which of the others would take his roles? Which of the others could take his roles? How much damage would his leaving cause to performances? On the other hand, how much damage would his staying cause to him?

  Burbage listened with more patience than Shakespeare would have expected-with more patience, in fact, than the poet thought he could have mustered himself. At last, he let out a long sigh. "What of the company will be left once you have your way with it?" he asked somberly.

  "Would you liefer see Tom dead?" Shakespeare asked.

  "I'd liefer see him playing," Burbage said.

  "Tell me he is not of the Romish persuasion, and have your wish."

  With another sigh, Burbage shook his head. "I cannot, for he is." He set his meaty hand on Shakespeare's shoulder. "But hear me, Will. Hear me well."

  "I am your servant," Shakespeare said.

  "Buzz, buzz!" Burbage said scornfully. "Go to, Will. I dance to your piping now, and well we both know't."

  "Would it were my piping, my friend, for my feet too tread its measures."

  "The which brings me back to what I'd tell you. Mark my words, now; mark 'em well. The purpose you undertake is dangerous, the friends you have uncertain, the time itself unsorted, and your whole plot too light, for the counterpoise of so great an opposition."

  "Say you so?" Shakespeare asked. "Say you so?"

  "Marry, I do."

  Shakespeare wished he could fly into a great temper. I say unto you, you are a shallow cowardly hind, and you lie, he wanted to shout. By the Lord our plot is as good a plot as ever was laid, our friends true and constant! A good plot, good friends, and full of expectation! A good plot, very good friends! What a frosty-spirited rogue are you!

  He wanted to say all that, and more besides. He wanted to, but could not. "What of't?" he said, and did not try to hide his own bitterness. "We go forward e'en so-forward, or to the Spaniards. There's your choice, and none other."

  Burbage's eyes had the look of a fox's as the hounds closed in. "Damn you, Will."

  "Anon," Shakespeare said, understanding Burbage's hunted expression all too well-he'd felt hunted himself for months. "But, for now, you'll see to Tom?"

  "I'll do't," Burbage said. Forward, Shakespeare thought

  .

  "Now here is an interesting bit of business." Captain Baltasar Guzman held up a sheet of paper.

  Lope de Vega hated it when his superior did that. It was always for effect; GuzmA?n never let him actually read the papers he displayed. And Lope was in a testy mood anyhow, for his visit to Sir Edmund Tilney had yielded exactly nothing useful about Geoffrey Martin and whoever had slain him. With such patience as he could muster, de Vega said, "Please tell me more, sir."

  "Well, Senior Lieutenant, you will know better than I how the pretty boy actors in these English theatrical companies draw sodomites as a bowl of honey draws flies," GuzmA?n said.

  "Oh, yes, sir," Lope agreed. "It is a scandal, a shame, and a disgrace."

  Captain Guzman waved the paper. "We now have leave to go after one of these wicked fellows, and an important one, too."

  "Ah?" de Vega said. "Who?" If it turned out to be Christopher Marlowe, he would go after the English poet with a heavy heart. Marlowe didn't hide that he loved boys. Far from hiding it, in fact, he flaunted it.

  He was so blatant about his leanings, Lope sometimes wondered if part of him wanted to be caught and punished. Whatever that part wanted, the rest of him would not care to be humiliated and then executed.

  But GuzmA?n said, "A certain Anthony Bacon. Do you know the name?"

  " Madre de Dios, I should hope so!" Lope exclaimed. "The older brother of Francis, the nephew of Lord Burghley. How did you learn that such a man favored this dreadful vice?" How is it that you can think of arresting such an important man, with such prominent connections, for sodomy? was what he really meant. The rich and the powerful often got away with what would ruin someone ordinary.

  But not here?

  Not here. Guzman answered, "Oh, this Bacon's habits are not in doubt. Even as long ago as 1586, when he was an English spy in France, he debauched one of his young servants. He was lucky the French court was full of perverts"-his lip curled-"or he would have suffered more than he did."

  "We aren't arresting him for what happened in France while Elizabeth was still Queen of England, are we?" Lope asked. Even for a charge as heinous as sodomy, that might go too far.

  But Baltasar GuzmA?n shook his head. "By no means, Senior Lieutenant. He has taken up with one of the boy actors in a company, and there can be no doubt he's stuck it in as far as it would go."

  Do you know, do you have the faintest idea, what's being said of you and Enrique? Lope wondered. He shook his head. Guzman couldn't possibly. He couldn't speak with such disgusted relish about what Anthony Bacon had done if he'd done the like himself, or if he knew people thought he'd done the like. Lope had seen good acting in the Spanish theatre, and in the English, but nothing to compare to GuzmA?n's performance, if performance it were.

  "A question, your Excellency?" de Vega asked. Captain GuzmA?n nodded. Lope went on, "How is it that this falls to us and not to the English Inquisition? Bacon has committed the sin of buggery, not treason against Isabella and Albert or rebellion against his Most Catholic Majesty."

  "As it happens, Don Diego Flores de Valdas referred the matter to us," GuzmA?n replied. "It may yet come down to treason. Remember-not so long ago, your precious Shakespeare visited the house Anthony and Francis Bacon share. Why? We still don't know. We have no idea. But if we take Bacon and squeeze him till-"

  "Squeeze him till the grease runs out of him," Lope broke in. Captain GuzmA?n looked blank. Lope explained: " Bacon, in English, means the same as tocino in Spanish."

  "Does it?" Guzman's smile was forced. "Shall we stick to the business at hand? If we take Bacon and squeeze him, we may finally find out why Shakespeare was there-and from that, who knows where we might go? If it were up to me, Burghley would have lost his head with the rest of Elizabeth's chief officers."

  "King Philip ordered otherwise," de Vega said. His superior grimaced, but that was an argument no one could oppose.

  GuzmA?n said, "We will go seize Bacon, then. We will seize him, and we will see how he fries." He waited for Lope to laugh. Lope dutifully did, even if he'd made the joke first.

  Half an hour later, the two of them rode hotspur out of London towards Westminster at the head of a troop of Spanish cavalrymen. They had passed through Ludgate and were trotting west along Fleet Street when Lope suddenly whipped his head around. "What is it?" asked Baltasar Guzman, who missed very little.

  "I thought that fellow walking back towards London, the one who scrambled off the road to get out of our way, was Shakespeare," de Vega answered. "Is it worth our while to stop and find out?"

  GuzmA?n considered, then shook his head. "No. Even if it was, he could have too many good reasons, reasons that have nothing to do with the Bacons' house, for being on this side of London. Walking in his own city is not evidence of anything, and neither is getting out of the way of cavalrymen."

  " Muy bien," Lope said. "I would have used these arguments with you, but if you hadn't been persuaded. " He shrugged. "You are the captain."

  "Yes. I am." Guzman bared his teeth in a hunter's grin. "And now I want a taste of Bacon-of tocino, eh?" Now he wouldn't leave the pun al
one.

  The troop of horsemen pounded up Drury Lane. Westminster seemed to Lope a different world from London: less crowded, with far bigger, far grander homes, homes that would have done credit to a Spanish nobleman. Only the abominable weather reminded him in which kingdom he dwelt.

  Captain Guzman reined in. He pointed to a particularly splendid half-timbered house. "That one," he said. "Senior Lieutenant de Vega, you will interpret for us."

  "I am at your service, your Excellency." Lope dismounted.

  So did Guzman and the cavalrymen. A few of the latter held horses for the rest. The others drew swords and pistols and advanced on the estate behind the two officers. "I hope the heretics inside put up a fight and give us an excuse to sack the place," a trooper said hungrily. "God cover my arse with boils if you couldn't bring away a year's pay without half trying." A couple of other men growled greedy agreement.

  "By God, if they give us any trouble, we will sack them," Captain GuzmA?n declared. "They're only Englishmen. They have no business standing in our way. They have no right to stand in our way." The cavalrymen nodded, staring avidly-wolfishly-at the house upon which they advanced.

  Pale English faces stared out of them through the windows, whose small glass panes were held together by strips of lead. Before de Vega and GuzmA?n reached the door, it opened. A frightened-looking but well-dressed servant bowed to them. "What would ye, gentles?" he asked. "Why come ye hither with such a host at your backs?"

  "We require the person of Senor-of Master-Anthony Bacon, he to be required to give answer to certain charges laid against him," Lope answered. He quickly translated for Captain Guzman.

  His superior nodded approval, then turned and rapped out an order to the cavalrymen: "Surround the place. Let no one leave."

  As the troopers hurried to obey, the house servant said, "Bide here a moment, my masters. I'll return presently, with one who'll tell ye more than I can." He ducked into the house, but did not presume to close the door.

  "Can they hide him in there?" Lope asked.

  "Not from us." Guzman spoke with great conviction. "And I'll tear the place down around their ears if I think that's what they're trying."

  The servant was as good as his word, coming back almost at once. Behind him strode a man made several inches taller by a high-crowned, wide-brimmed hat. The newcomer's enormous, fancy ruff and velvet doublet proclaimed him a person of consequence. So did his manner; though no bigger than Lope (apart from that hat), he contrived to look down his nose at him. When he spoke, it was in elegant Latin:

  "What do you desire?"

  So much for my translating, de Vega thought. "I desire to know who you are, to begin with," Captain Guzman replied, also in Latin.

  "I? I am Francis Bacon," the Englishman replied. He was in his late thirties-not far from Lope's age-with a long face, handsome but for a rather tuberous nose; a pale complexion; dark beard and eyebrows, the latter formidably expressive; and the air of a man certain he was talking to his inferiors. It made de Vega want to bristle.

  It put Baltasar Guzman's back up, too. "You are the younger brother of Anthony Bacon?" he snapped.

  "I have that honor, yes. Who are you, and why do you wish to know?"

  GuzmA?n quivered with anger. "I am an officer of his Most Catholic Majesty, Philip II of Spain, and I have come to arrest your brother, sir, for the abominable crime of sodomy. So much for your honor.

  Now where is he? Speak, or be sorry for your silence."

  Francis Bacon had nerve. He eyed GuzmA?n as if the captain were something noxious he'd found floating in a mud puddle. "You may be an officer of the King of Spain, but this is England. Show me your warrant, or else get hence. For the house of everyone is to him as his castle and fortress, as well for his defense against injury and violence as for his repose."

  Guzman's rapier cleared the scabbard with a wheep! Lope also drew his sword, backing his superior's play. The troopers with pistols behind them pointed their weapons at Bacon's face. "Damnation to you and damnation to your castle, sir," the dapper little noble ground out. "Here is my warrant. Obey it or die.

  The choice is yours."

  For a moment, Lope thought Francis Bacon would let himself be killed on the spot. But then, very visibly, the Englishman crumpled. "I beseech your Lordships to be merciful to a broken reed," he said. "Ask. I will answer."

  In Spanish, Captain Guzman said to Lope, "You see? Fear of death makes cowards of them all."

  "Yes, your Excellency," de Vega answered in the same language. Watching Bacon's face, he added,

  "Have a care, sir. I think he understands this tongue, whether he cares to speak it or not."

  "Thank you. I will note it, I promise you." GuzmA?n returned to Latin as he gave his attention back to the Englishman: "So. You are the brother of the abominable sodomite, Anthony Bacon."

  "I-" Francis Bacon bit his lip. "I am Anthony Bacon's brother, yes. I said so."

  "Where is your brother?"

  "He is not here."

  The point of Guzman's rapier leaped out and caressed Bacon's throat just above his ruff, just below his beard. "That is not what I asked, Englishman. One more time: where is he?"

  "I–I-I do not know. You may take my life, but before God it is the truth. I do not know. Day before yesterday, he left this house. He did not say whither he was bound. I have not seen him since."

  "Tipped off?" Lope wondered aloud.

  "By whom?" Captain Guzman demanded. "What Spaniard would do such a wicked, treacherous thing?"

  "Perhaps another sodomite, a secret one," de Vega said.

  GuzmA?n grimaced and grunted. "Yes, damn it, that could be. Or it could be that SeA±or Home-is-his-castle here is lying through his teeth. He'll be sorry if he is, but it could be. We'll find out, by God." He turned and called over his shoulder to the cavalrymen at his back: "Now we take the place apart." The troopers whooped with glee.

  One of the first things they found, in the front hall, was, not Anthony Bacon himself, but a painting of him.

  He was even paler than his brother, with a longer, wispier, more pointed beard and with a long, thin, straight nose rather than a lumpy one. But for their noses, the resemblance between the two of them was striking.

  Pointing to the portrait, Lope told the cavalrymen, "Here is the wretch we seek. Whoever finds him will have a reward." He jingled coins in his belt pouch. The troopers grinned and nudged one another. With a grin of his own, de Vega said, "Go on, my hounds. Hunt down this rabbit for us."

  The Spaniards went through the Bacons' home with a methodical ferocity that said they would have done well as robbers-and that might have said some of them had more than a little practice at the trade. They examined every space that might possibly have held a man, from the cellars to the kitchens to the attic.

  They knocked holes in several walls: some Protestants' houses had "preacher holes" concealed with marvelous cunning. A couple of troopers went out onto the roof; Lope listened to their boots clumping above his head.

  They did not find Anthony Bacon.

  His brother Francis asked, "How much of my own will they leave me?" By the way the troopers' pouches got fatter and fatter as time went by, the question seemed reasonable.

  But Captain Guzman was not inclined to listen to reason. His hand dropped to the hilt of his rapier once more. "You will cease your whining," he said in a soft, deadly voice. "Otherwise, I shall start inquiring amongst the younger servants here about your habits."

  If he had any evidence that Francis Bacon liked boys, too, he hadn't mentioned it to Lope. But if that was a shot in the dark, it proved an inspired one. The younger Bacon sucked in a horrified breath and went even whiter than the portrait of his brother.

  With more clumping, the cavalrymen on the roof came down. The ones who'd gone through the house returned to the front hall. "No luck, your Excellencies," their sergeant said. "Not a slice of this Bacon did we find." Now he was making de Vega's joke.

  Lope did his best to look on
the bright side. "We'll run him down."

  Baltasar Guzman nodded. "We'll run him down, or we'll run him out of the kingdom. Let him play the bugger in France or Denmark. They deserve him. Let's go." He led Lope and the troop of cavalrymen out of the house. Francis Bacon stared after them, but said not another word.

  As Lope mounted his horse and started riding back to London, he thought, Nobody would dare call GuzmA?n a maricA?n now, not after the way he's hunted Anthony Bacon. The troop had almost got back to the barracks before something else along those lines occurred to him. No one would dare call Captain Guzman a marican now, but does that really prove he isn't one? He worried at that the rest of the day, but found no answer to it.

  The expression Will Kemp aimed at Shakespeare lay halfway between a leer and a glower.

  "Well, Master Poet, what have you done with Tom?"

  "Naught," Shakespeare answered, blinking. "Is he not here?" He looked around the Theatre. He'd just got there, a little later than he might have. He saw no sign of the company's best boy actor.

  Kemp went on leering. "An you've done naught, what wish you you'd done with him?"

  "Naught!" Shakespeare said again, this time in some alarm. Tom was a comely-more than a comely-youth, and such liaisons happened often enough in the tight, altogether masculine world of the theatre. But what might be a jest at another time could turn deadly now. If the Spaniards or the English Inquisition started wondering if he were a sodomite, they might also start wondering if he were a traitor.

  What was buggery, after all, but treason against the King of Heaven?

  But from the tiring room came a sharp command: "Go to, Kemp! Give over."

  Had Richard Burbage spoke to the clown like that, a fight would have blown up on the spot. Not even Kemp, though, failed to respect Jack Hungerford. He asked the tireman, "Know you somewhat o' this matter, then?"

  "Ay, somewhat, and more than somewhat, the which is somewhat more than you," Hungerford answered.

  "What's toward, then, Master Hungerford?" Shakespeare asked. Maybe, if everyone stuck to facts, no one would throw any more insults around. And maybe the horse will learn to sing, Shakespeare thought-one more bit of Grecian not quite folly he had from Christopher Marlowe.