Ruled Britannia

by Harry Turtledove

  " a€?Rough rigor looks outright, and still prevails:

  Let sword, let fire, let torments be their end.

  Severity upholds both realm and rule.

  What then for minds, which have revenging moods,

  And ne'er forget the cross they boldly bear?

  And as for England's desperate and disloyal plots

  Spaniards, remember, write it on your walls,

  That rebels, traitors and conspirators

  Shall feel the flames of ever-flaming fire

  Which are not quenched with a sea of tears.' "

  Looking up again, he nodded. " 'Twill serve-'twill serve very well. And a pretty contrast you draw 'twixt his Most Catholic Majesty's just fury here and the mercy of her life he grants Elizabeth conquered."

  "Gramercy," Shakespeare said automatically, and then, staring, "How know you of that?"

  Phelippes clicked his tongue between his teeth. "Your business is to write, the which you do most excellent well. Mine, I told you, is to know. Think you. "-the pause was a name he did not say aloud-"would choose me, would use me, did I not know passing well?"

  Had he named that name, would it have been Sir William Cecil's or that of Don Diego Flores de ValdA©s? Or might he have chosen one as readily as the other? Shakespeare wished the question hadn't occurred to him. Phelippes openly avowed being a tool. Might not any man take up a tool and cut with it?

  Phelippes tore off the bottom part of the sheet of paper on which Shakespeare had been writing.

  Shakespeare stifled a sigh. The other man surely would not pay him for the paper. Phelippes inked a pen.

  He began to write. Shakespeare's own hand was quick and assured, if not a thing of beauty. But his eyes widened as he watched Phelippes. The bespectacled little man's talents weren't showy, but talents he unquestionably had. The goose quill raced over the paper at a speed that put Shakespeare's best to shame.

  "Here." Phelippes handed him the scrap he'd torn off. "Will it serve, think you?"

  He'd copied out the bit of King Philip's speech he'd read before. Shakespeare stared. He himself used the native English hand he'd learned in school back in Stratford; his writing had grown more fluid over the years because he did so much of it, but had never changed its essential nature. Phelippes' studied Italian script, by contrast, was so very perfect, an automaton might have turned it out. And he'd written in haste here, not at leisure.

  "You know full well 'twill serve, ay, and more than serve," Shakespeare answered. "I yield you the palm, Master Phelippes, and own I have not seen so fine a character writ so swift in all my days. The writing masters who show their art before the general could not outdo you."

  He'd meant it for praise, but Thomas Phelippes only sniffed and looked at him over the tops of his spectacles. "Those disguised cheaters and prating mountebanks," he said scornfully. "Thread-bare jugglers, the lot of them. They write to be writing. I write to be read, and need no great show towards that end."

  He prides himself in his very obscurity, Shakespeare realized. He'd liefer be a greyhen, unseen against the heather, than a strutting peacock flashing his feathers for all to admire. That struck the poet as a perverse pride. Most Englishmen-and Spaniards, too-gloried in display, so much so as to make deliberate self-effacement seem unnatural.

  But that was wide of the mark. "I shall give Master Vincent your name," Shakespeare said. Phelippes nodded complacently. The poet asked, "How shall he inquire after you?"

  "Never mind," Phelippes said. "So that he hath my name, it sufficeth me. Come the time, we shall know each the other." He rose from his stool. "Farewell." With no more flourish than when he'd come in, he slipped out of the ordinary.

  "What a strange little man," Kate said a few minutes later-she seemed to need so long to realize Phelippes had gone.

  "Strange?" Shakespeare considered that. After a moment, he shook his head. "He is far stranger than simply strange."

  The serving woman frowned. "Will you speak in riddles?"

  "How not, speaking of one?" He didn't explain himself. He wasn't sure he could have explained himself, poet though he was. But he knew what he meant.

  When he went to the Theatre the next day, he told Thomas Vincent of Phelippes. The prompter nodded, but asked, "Hath he the required discretion?"

  "Of discretion he hath a surplusage," Shakespeare answered. "He wants some of the goodly qualities framing a man of parts, but discretion? Never."

  "I rely on your judgment, as I needs must here," Vincent said. "An you be mistook-" He broke off, as if he didn't even want to think about that.

  Neither did Shakespeare, but he said, "Therein, I am not."

  "God grant it be so," Vincent said. "And when may I look for King Philip?"

  He was as pushy as a prompter should be. "Anon," Shakespeare told him. "Anon."

  "Anon, anon," Thomas Vincent echoed mockingly. "Are you then metamorphosed into a drawer at the Boar's Head, ever vowing to cure ails with ale and never bringing the which is promised?"

  "You'll have't, and in good time," the poet said, letting a little irritation show. "King Philip breathes yet, mind you. We stray close to treason, treating of his mortality ere it be proved."

  "Don Diego hath given you his commission," Vincent said. "That being so, treason enters not into the question."

  "The question, say you?" Shakespeare shivered, though the day was mild enough. When he thought of the question, he thought of endless hogsheads of water funneled down his throat, of thumbscrews, of iron boots thrust into the fire, of all the fiendish ingenuity Spaniards and home-grown English inquisitors could bring to bear in interrogating some luckless wretch who'd fallen into their clutches.

  And he had no trouble at all seeing himself as a luckless wretch.

  "How may I find this Master. Phillips, said you?"

  "Phelippes," Shakespeare corrected. "He told me he would make himself known to you in good time."

  "He told you that, did he?" Vincent turned his head a little to one side and brought a hand up to his ear, as if imagining he were listening to a conversation at which he hadn't been present. "Quotha, a€?I shall make myself known to him in good time.' " He sounded preposterously pompous. "And then you would have nodded and said, a€?Let it be so, Master Phelippes.' " Suddenly he stabbed a forefinger at Shakespeare. "But if he fail to make himself known to me?"

  "Then we are betrayed, and God have mercy on our souls," Shakespeare said. Thomas Vincent asked him no more questions.

  He wished the same would have been true of the players. He'd had to sound them out, one by one, knowing a wrong word in the wrong ear would bring catastrophe down upon them all. He felt as if he were defusing the Hellburner of Antwerp each time he spoke to one of them. At his nod, Richard Burbage had eased a couple of devout Papists from the company-both of them hired men, fortunately, and not sharers whom the other sharers would have had to buy out. Some of those who remained, and who knew what was toward, seemed to think it certain no one not of their persuasion was left in the Theatre. They were careless enough with what they said to make Shakespeare flinch several times a day-or, when things were bad, several times an hour.

  It would have been even worse had they seen their parts for Boudicca and begun throwing around lines from the play. That would come soon enough-all too soon, Shakespeare feared. Even now, a robustious periwig-pated fellow named Matthew Quinn got a laugh and a cheer by shouting out that all Jesuits should be flung into the sea.

  "Only chance, only luck, Lieutenant de Vega came not this morning, else he had been here to catch that,"

  Shakespeare said to Burbage in the tiring room after the company gave the day's play.

  "I have spoke to Master Quinn," Burbage answered grimly. "The rascally sheep-biter avouches he shall not be so spendthrift of tongue henceforward."

  Will Kemp came up to the two of them puffing on a pipe of tobacco. Still nervous and irritable, Shakespeare spoke more petulantly than he might have: "How can you bear that stinking thing?"


  "How?" Kemp, for a wonder, took no offense. "Why, naught simpler-it holds from my nostrils the reek of yon affectioned ass." He pointed with his chin towards Matt Quinn. "And they style me fool and clown." He rolled his eyes.

  "They call you by the names you have earned," Burbage said. "The names Master Quinn hath earned for this day's business needs must be named by Satan himself, none other having the tongue to withstand the flames therefrom engendered."

  "Better Quinn were dis gendered," Shakespeare said. "The fright he gave me, I'd not sorrow to see him lose both tongue and yard."

  "You're a bloody kern today," Kemp said.

  "Nay." Shakespeare shook his head. "I thirst for no blood, nor want none spilled-most especially not mine own."

  "Master Quinn will attend henceforth," Burbage promised. "He stakes his life upon't."

  "The game hath higher stakes than that," Shakespeare said, "for his I reckon worthless, but I crave mine own to keep."

  "And they style me fool and clown," Will Kemp repeated. Shakespeare left-all but fled-the tiring room a moment later. He knew this plot was all too likely to miscarry, but wished Kemp hadn't reminded him of it quite like that.

  "Ah, my love, I must go," Lope de Vega murmured regretfully.

  Lucy Watkins clung to him. "Stay with me," she said. "Stay with me forever. Till I met thee, I knew not what love was."

  "Thy lips are sweet," he said, and kissed her. But then he got out of the narrow bed and began to dress.

  "Still, I must away. Duty calls." Duty would consist of more rehearsals for El mejor mozo de Espana.

  Lope knew he would go back to his games with Catalina IbaA±ez. The more he saw of Don Alejandro de Recalde's mistress, the more games he wanted to play with her. That didn't mean he despised Lucy, but the thrill of the chase was gone.

  Softly, Lucy began to weep. "Would thou gavest me all thy duty."

  "I may not. What I may give thee, I do." What I don't give to Catalina, Lope thought. Lucy knew nothing of the other woman. Lope dabbed at her face with the coverlet. "Here, dry thine eyes. We'll meet again, and soon. And when we do meet, let it be with gladness."

  "I always come to thee with gladness," the Englishwoman said. "But when thou goest. " She shook her head and snuffled. At last, though, she too sat up and reached for the clothes she'd so carelessly let fall to the floor a little while earlier.

  By then, Lope was pulling on his boots. He'd had plenty of practice dressing in a hurry. He didn't urge Lucy to move faster. Better-more discreet-if they weren't seen coming down the stairs together from the rooms above this alehouse. He kissed her again. "Think of me whilst we are parted, that the time until we meet again might seem the shorter."

  Even as he tasted her tears on his lips, she shook her head. "Always it is an age, an eternity. Never knew I time crawled so slow."

  He had no answer for that, or none that would make her happy. That being so, he slipped out of the cramped little room without another word. Before long, Lucy would come forth, too. What else could she do, after all? The stairs were uneven and rickety. He stepped carefully on them, and used care of a different sort going out through the throng of Englishmen drinking below. He walked very erect, hand on the hilt of his rapier, as if eager for one of them to challenge him. Because he looked so ready, none did.

  Behind him, one of them asked, "What doth the don here?"

  "What doth he? Why, his doxy," a drawer answered, and masculine laughter rose from the crowd. De Vega ignored it. The server wasn't even wrong, or not very wrong, though Lucy Watkins was no whore.

  She'd fallen in love with Lope as he'd fallen in love with her. If she hadn't, he would have lost interest in her right away. Getting to a woman's secret place was easy. Getting to her heart was harder, and mattered more.

  His own heart leaped when he began directing Catalina IbaA±ez, explaining to her just exactly how she as Isabella was falling in love with the soldier playing Ferdinand of Aragon. And if you as yourself happen to fall in love with me as I think I'm falling in love with you. Lope thought. He intended to give Catalina all the help he could along those lines.

  No matter what he intended, though, he had to restrain himself for the time being. "Don Alejandro, darling!" Catalina Ibanez squealed when a handsome, tawny-bearded fellow strutted into the courtyard where Lope was putting his mostly ragtag company through its paces. "You did come to see me rehearse!"

  "I told you I would," Don Alejandro de Recalde replied, bowing to her. "I keep my word." He nodded to Lope. "You are the playwright, senor?"

  "At your service, your Excellency," Lope said, with a bow of his own. At your mistress' service.

  Especially at your mistress' service.

  If the nobleman knew what was in de Vega's mind, he gave no sign of it. With another friendly nod, he said, "I've been listening to Catalina practicing her lines these past few days, and I have to tell you I'm impressed. I heard a good many dreary comedies in Madrid that couldn't come close to what you're doing here in this godforsaken wilderness."

  Slightly dazed, Lope murmured, "You're far too kind, your Excellency." He scratched his head. He wasn't impervious to guilt. Here was this fellow praising his work, and he wanted to sleep with the man's mistress? He took another look at Catalina IbaA±ez, at her sparking eyes, the delicate arch of her nose, her red lips and white teeth, the sweetly curved figure her brocaded dress displayed. Well, as a matter of fact, yes, Lope thought. The game is worth the candle.

  "Do I hear you write plays in English as well as Spanish?" Don Alejandro asked.

  "No, sir, that is not so. I speak English, but I have never tried to write it," de Vega answered. "I am working with SeA±or Shakespeare, though, on his play about his Most Catholic Majesty. The Englishman has even written a small part for me into his King Philip. That may be what you heard."

  "Yes, it could be," de Recalde agreed, still friendly and polite. "Would you do me the honor of letting me see what you have here so far?"

  Lope didn't really want to do that. The production was still ragged, and no one knew it better than he.

  But he saw no way to refuse a nobleman's request: however polite it sounded, it was really more a nobleman's order. He did feel he could warn de Recalde: "It won't be the show you'd see in a few more days."

  "Of course. Of course." Don Alejandro waved aside the objection. "But I do want to see how my sweetheart's lines fit in with everybody else's."

  He gazed fondly at Catalina IbaA±ez. Lope would have sold his soul for the look she sent the nobleman in return. But then she turned one equally warm on him, as she said, "He's given me such lovely words to use."

  "He certainly has," Don Alejandro agreed. Because of his wealth and good looks, was he too complacent to believe Catalina might be interested in a man who had little to offer but words? If he was that complacent, did he have reason to be so?

  I hope not, Lope thought. Aloud, he said, "Take your places, everyone! We're going to start from the beginning for his Excellency. Madre de Dios! Somebody kick Diego and wake him up."

  Diego rose with a yelp. "What was that for?" he demanded indignantly. "I wasn't asleep. I was only resting my eyes."

  Arguing with him was more trouble than it was worth. De Vega didn't try. He just said, "No time for rest now, lazybones. We're going to take it from the top for Don Alejandro, so he can see what we've been up to."

  "Ah, senor, since when have you wanted anybody knowing what you're up to?" Diego murmured, his eyes sliding towards Catalina IbaA±ez. Lope coughed and spluttered. Diego might make a miserable excuse for a servant, but that didn't mean he didn't know the man he served so badly. Instead of looking at Catalina himself, Lope glanced toward Alejandro de Recalde. The nobleman, fortunately, hadn't paid any attention to Diego.

  "Places! Places!" Lope shouted, submerging would-be lover so playwright and director could come forth. Being all those people at once, he sometimes felt very crowded inside. Were other people also so complex? When he thought of Dieg
o, he had his doubts. When he thought of Christopher Marlowe. I won't think of Marlowe, he told himself. He's gone, and I don't have to worry about seizing him any more. But oh, by God, how I'll miss his poetry.

  De Vega's own poetry poured forth from his amateur company

  He screamed, cajoled, prompted, and kept looking at Don Alejandro. Catalina's keeper plainly enjoyed El mejor mozo de EspaA±a. He laughed in all the right places, and clapped loud enough to seem a bigger audience than he was. He didn't applaud only his mistress, either, which proved him a gentleman.

  When the play ended, Catalina Ibanez curtsied to him. Then, deliberately, as if she really were Queen Isabella, she curtsied to Lope, too. He bowed in return, also as if she were the Queen. Don Alejandro de Recalde laughed and cheered for them both. Catalina's eyes lit up. She smiled out at the nobleman-but somehow managed to include Lope in that smile, too.

  She's trying to see how close to the wind she can sail, he realized, playing games with me right under Don Alejandro's nose. He'll kill her-and likely me, too-if he notices. But if he doesn't-oh, if he doesn't.

  Lope slid closer to her. As softly as he could, he murmured, "When can I see you? Alone?"

  Had she shown surprise then, surprise or offense, he would have been a dead man. But she, unlike most of her companions here, really was an actress; Lope had had that thought before. "Soon," she whispered back. "Very soon." Her expression never changed, not a bit.

  She's going to betray Don Alejandro, Lope thought. How long before she betrays me, too? His eyes traveled the length of her again. For the life of him-and he knew it might be for the life of him-he couldn't make himself worry about that.

  Thomas Vincent held sheets of paper under Shakespeare's nose. " 'Steeth, Master Vincent, mind what you do," Shakespeare said. "None should look on those who hath not strongest need."

  "Be you not amongst that number?" the prompter returned. "Methought you'd fain see our scribe his work."

  "I have seen his work," Shakespeare said. "Had I not, I had given you the name of another."