Ruled Britannia

by Harry Turtledove

  But he took a sheet from Vincent even so. Thomas Phelippes had had to work like a man possessed to copy out all the parts of Boudicca so quickly. However fast he'd written, though, his script hadn't suffered. It remained as clear as it had been when he'd demonstrated it in Shakespeare's ordinary.

  "You could get no better," Shakespeare said, and Thomas Vincent nodded. The poet gave back the part.

  "Now then-make this disappear. Place it not where any sneaking spy nor prowling Spaniard might come upon't."

  "I am not so fond as you hold me," the prompter said. "None shall see it but he whose part it is-and him I shall not suffer to take it from the Theatre."

  "Marry, I hope you do not," Shakespeare said. "Yet will even that suffice us? For know you, we may also be done to death by slanderous tongues."

  "I know't well, sir: too well, by Jesu," Vincent replied. "Here I am come unto a fear of death, a terrible and unavoided danger."

  "Let only the fear thereof be unavoided, the thing itself passing over us like the Angel of Death o'er the children of Israel in Egypt. From this nettle, danger, may we pluck the flower, safety."

  Before Thomas Vincent could answer, one of the tireman's helpers who stood at the entrance to the Theatre began to whistle the tune to a particular bawdy song. The players on the stage, who'd begun learning their parts for Boudicca, switched on the instant to rehearsing the piece they would put on that afternoon. The prompter said, "Mark you, now-in sooth, they do vanish." He vanished himself, disappearing into the tiring room.

  Shakespeare wished he too could disappear. No such luck. Instead, he walked out to greet Lieutenant de Vega, of whose arrival that bawdy song had warned. "God give you good morrow," he called, and made a leg at the Spaniard.

  "And you, sir." Lope swept off his hat and bowed in return. "You are well, I hope?"

  "Passing well, I thank you." Shakespeare didn't mind exchanging courtesies with de Vega. As long as they talked in commonplaces, peril seemed far away. It wasn't; he knew that full well. But it seemed so, and even the semblance of tranquility was precious.

  "How fares King Philip?" Lope asked.

  "Passing well," Shakespeare repeated, adding, "or so I hope." The commission he had from Don Diego Flores de ValdA©s was far safer than the one Lord Burghley had given him. Part of him hoped Lord Westmorland's Men would offer their auditors King Philip, not Boudicca. That would pluck safety from the nettle of danger. It would be a craven's safety, but safety nonetheless. Let Boudicca once see the light of day, and.

  Let Boudicca once see the light of day, and God grant I get free of England, as Kit hath done, Shakespeare thought. England had lain under the Spaniards' boots for almost ten years now. Could she rise up and cast them out? If she could, why hadn't she long since?

  "How fares King Philip himself?" he inquired

  Lope de Vega frowned. "Not well, I fear me: not well at all. Late word from Spain hath it he waxeth dropsical, his belly and thighs now much distended whilst his other members waste away."

  He crossed himself. Shakespeare did the same. He couldn't quite hide a shudder. He'd seen the horrid bloating of dropsy, seen it rob its victims of life an inch at a time. They'd had to press a board against one luckless player's belly to help him make water, as if they were squeezing the juice from grapes in a wine press. Next to that, the swift certainty of the gallows seemed a mercy. But you'd have no swift end, not now.

  "Best you finish the play, quick as you might," de Vega told him. "Soon enough-all too soon-the company will show it forth."

  "It lacks but little," Shakespeare said.

  "Glad I am to hear you say so," the Spaniard said. "As soon as all the parts be finished, let your prompter give them to the scribes, that they might make fair copies of them for the players to learn by heart."

  "Certes, your honor. Just as you say, so shall it be." Now Shakespeare bowed. "You know well the customary usages of a theatre not your own."

  He put more sarcasm into that than perhaps he should have. De Vega, fortunately, did not seem to notice. He answered, "They are not so different from those of Spain. Your prompter is new to his work, not so?"

  "Indeed, his predecessor having. died." Guilt stabbed at Shakespeare. He did his best not to show it.

  De Vega here might one day talk to Constable Strawberry, and Strawberry, in his own plodding way, had already connected Shakespeare and Ingram Frizer, though he didn't quite know what connections he'd made.

  But, for now, Lope de Vega's attention focused on King Philip and the problems involved in producing it. "An he have trouble finding scribes fit for the matter, I ken a man who'd suit it."

  "Ah?" Shakespeare said: the most noncommittal noise he could make.

  Lope nodded. "Ay, sir: an Englishman already in the employ of Don Diego, and thus acquainted with all you purpose here. I have seen his writing, and know him to have an excellent character, most legible. He is called Thomas. ah. Phelippes."

  He pronounced the name in the Spanish manner, as if it had three syllables. That kept Shakespeare from recognizing it for a moment. When he did, he felt as if a thunderbolt had crashed to earth at his feet. Lope knew Phelippes well enough to know what sort of scribe he made? Did the Spanish officer have a fair copy of Boudicca? Had he got it before Thomas Vincent got his?

  Whom may I trust? Shakespeare wondered dizzily. Vincent? Phelippes? Nick Skeres? Lord Burghley? Anyone in all the world? The deeper into the plot he sank, the closer he came to the moment when the company would offer one play or the other, the more certain he became that no one had any business ever trusting anyone else.

  "What think you, senor?" Lope asked when Shakespeare didn't answer right away.

  "Master Vincent, meseems, hath already scribes enough for the work," Shakespeare said, picking his words with the greatest of care. "You were wiser, though, to speak to him in this matter than to me. He is quite out of countenance with my character, reckoning it to show mine own bad character."

  The Spanish officer chuckled at his feeble wordplay, not knowing how hard Shakespeare was working to distract him and to conceal his own alarm. "As you suggest, so shall I do," de Vega said. "Shall I find him in the tiring room?"

  "I know not," Shakespeare replied, hoping Vincent had had the sense, and the time, to hide the fair copy-the fair copy Thomas Phelippes had written out! — of Boudicca.

  "I'll seek him there," Lope said, and off he went before Shakespeare could try to delay him any more. No howls of fright or fury came from behind the stage, so Shakespeare dared hope the prompter had proved prompt enough in concealing the dangerous play.

  Shakespeare had only a small part in the day's production, Marlowe's Caligula. The poet was fled, but his plays lived on. Shakespeare would have been glad with more to do; he might have worried less. As things were, he'd never been so glad to escape the Theatre once the show was done.

  He hadn't gone far towards London before Richard Burbage fell into step with him. "Give you good even," the other player said, and then, "It went right well, methought."

  He'd played the title role, and milked it for all it was worth. Still, Shakespeare nodded; as Marlowe had written it, the role was worth milking. "This was the frightfullest Roman of them all," Shakespeare said.

  "In sooth, he is a choice bit of work," Burbage said. "And, in sooth, could we but show more of what he did, he'd seem frightfuller yet."

  "It wonders me the Master of the Revels gave Kit leave to present e'en as much as the play offers,"

  Shakespeare said.

  "Come the day, we'll show more than Sir Edmund wots of," Burbage observed.

  "Come the day," Shakespeare echoed. "And, by what the Spaniard saith, the day comes soon: Philip hath declined further." He walked along for a few paces, then added, "Or, come the day, we'll give the auditors King Philip, and all will weep for fallen glory."

  Burbage was also silent for a little while. "Peradventure we will," he said at last. "But ere I sleep each night, I pray God they'll see the other."
Here in Shoreditch High Street, he named no names. Who could tell which jade or ragamuffin might take some incautious word to the dons or the English Inquisition?

  "Well, Dick, your prayer, at least, is to the purpose," Shakespeare said wearily. "When I petition the Lord, it is that He let this cup pass from me. I fear me, though, He hears me not." He threw his hands in the air. " 'Swounds, why fled I not this madness or ever it laid hold of me?"

  "The heart hath its reasons, whereof reason knoweth naught," Burbage said.

  Shakespeare stopped in surprise. "That is well said. Is't your own?" When Burbage nodded, Shakespeare set a hand on his shoulder. "When next Will Kemp assails you as being but the mouthpiece for other men, cast defiance in's teeth."

  "So I would, and so I will," the other player answered. "But gramercy for your courtesy."

  "Your servant, sir," Shakespeare said. "Would I were penning some trifling comedy of lovers loving will they, nill they; I'd engraft your line therein fast as ever I could." He sighed. "Shall I ever again labor over aught so sweet and simple?"

  "But if all go well. " Burbage said.

  "Perhaps," Shakespeare said, and said no more. He didn't want his hopes to rise too high. They would only have further to fall.

  Burbage might have sensed as much. Instead of going on with the argument, he pointed ahead.

  "Bishopsgate draws nigh. Spring at last being arrived, it likes me having daylight left once we've strutted and fretted our two hours upon the stage."

  "Why, it doth like me as well," Shakespeare said in surprise. He clapped a hand to his forehead. "By my troth, Dick, I've scarce noted proud-pied April, dressed in all his trim, putting a spirit of youth in everything. Goose quill and paper have compassed round my life."

  "Belike, for it's April no moe," Burbage told him. "These are May's new-fangled shows, and far from the best of 'em."

  "May?" Shakespeare cried. "Surely not! Surely they'd have decked the streets with greenery, as is the custom, and burnt bonfires, and run up maypoles for that they might dance round 'em."

  "Surely they would have. Surely they did. Surely you never marked it." Richard Burbage eyed him with amused pity.

  "Wait!" Shakespeare snapped his fingers. "I mind me we gave the groundlings The Taming of the Shrew on the day. There! D'you see? I had some knowledge of it after all." That felt very important to him just then.

  Burbage's expression changed not a jot. "And so we did. But why know you of it? Only for that it came to pass within the Theatre's bourne. Otherwise. " He shook his head.

  As usual, Irishmen with long, hungry faces and fiery eyes stood guard at Bishopsgate. The gallowglasses glowered at Shakespeare and Burbage: the two players were big enough and young enough to seem dangerous no matter how mildly they behaved. One of the guards said something in his own musical language, of which Shakespeare understood not a word. Another started to draw his sword. But their sergeant-distinguishable only because he was a few years older and a little more scarred-shook his head. He waved the Englishmen into London, saying, "Pass through. Quick now, mind."

  "Lean raw-boned rascals," Burbage muttered, but he made sure the gallowglasses couldn't hear him.

  "I do despise the bloody cannibals," Shakespeare agreed, also in a low voice. "May they prove roast meat for worms."

  "God grant it!" Burbage said. "That the dons lord it over us is one thing-they earned the right, having beaten us in war. But these redpolled swashbucklers?" He shook his head. "Men who'd never dare rise against the Spaniards will run riot to cast out Irish wolves."

  "Ay, belike." Shakespeare wondered if Sir William Cecil had thought of inflaming Londoners against the savages from the western island. Likely he will have, the poet thought. He sees so much; would he have missed that? Still, he resolved to speak of it to Lord Burghley when next he saw him, or to Nick Skeres or Thomas Phelippes if he didn't see the noble soon.

  Phelippes? Shakespeare kicked a pebble into a puddle. Whom did the clever, dusty little man really serve? Sir William? Don Diego? Or only himself, first, last, and always? As soon as Shakespeare shaped the question, he saw what the answer had to be. But where, in the end, would Phelippes judge his interest lay? And how much would that cost everyone on the other side?

  Burbage clapped him on the back. "I'm to mine own house. God give you good even, Will."

  "And you," Shakespeare said absently. His head full of plots, he had to remind himself to turn off Bishopsgate Street and make for his lodging. Then he'd be off to the ordinary, to write as long as he could, and then back to the lodging once more, this time to sleep. "God save me," he muttered. "May Day passed by, and I knew it not." He wondered what else he'd missed, and decided he didn't want to know.

  "Come on, Diego," Lope de Vega said impatiently from horseback. "You have only a donkey to mount. The two of you must be close cousins."

  " Senor, I would never mount my cousin. The Good Book forbids it-and besides, she's ugly," his servant answered. As Lope blinked at such unexpected wit, Diego swung up into the saddle. The ass brayed pitifully at his weight.

  "You have your costume?" Lope demanded. Diego set a hand on a saddlebag. De Vega nodded. "Good.

  To Westminster, then. They say England's Isabella may come to watch the play, to see Castile's performed on stage. She could make your fortune, Diego." She could make mine, he thought.

  Diego said, "A servant playing a servant won't make much of a mark. You should have cast me as Ferdinand."

  They rode away from the Spanish barracks at the heart of London and west toward the court center.

  Lope had to rein in to keep his horse, a high-spirited mare, from leaving Diego's donkey behind.

  "Ferdinand!" Lope said. "What mad dream is that? You're not asleep now, not so I can tell."

  "But am I not the perfect figure of a king?" Diego said.

  Surveying his rotund servant, de Vega answered, "You are the perfect figure of two kings-at least."

  Diego sent him a venomous glare.

  Lope paid no attention. On such a day, he was happy enough to be outdoors. As always, spring had, to a Spaniard's reckoning, come late to England, but it was here at last. The sun shone brightly. The only clouds in the sky were small white ones, drifting slowly from west to east on a mild breeze. It had rained a couple of days before-not hard, just enough to lay the dust without turning the road into a bog.

  Everything was green. New grass grew exuberantly: more so than it ever did in drier, hotter Castile.

  Trees and bushes were in new leaf. The earliest spring flowers had begun to brighten the landscape.

  Birdsong filled the moist air. Robins and chaffinches, cuckoos and larks, waxwings and tits all made music. They left England sooner and came back later than they did in Spain. Each spring, when they returned, Lope discovered anew how much he'd missed them and how especially empty and barren the winter had seemed without them.

  Diego smiled to hear those songs, too. "Mesh nets," he murmured. "Birdlime. By all the saints, there's nothing can match a big plate of songbirds, all nicely roasted on spits or maybe baked in a pie. I don't think much of English cookery, but they make some savory pies. Beefsteak and kidney's mighty tasty, too, and you can get that any season of the year."

  "Yes, that is a good one," Lope agreed. "And the song of the cow is much less melodious than that of the linnet or greenfinch."

  "The song of the cow, seA±or?" Diego asked. Before de Vega could answer, his servant shook his head.

  "No, don't tell me. I don't think I want to know. It must be something only poets can hear."

  "Not at all, Diego." Lope smiled sweetly. "For example, whenever you open your mouth, everyone around you is treated to the song of the jackass."

  "Oh, I am wounded," Diego moaned. He clutched at his heart. "I have taken a mortal thrust. Send for the physician. No, send for the priest to shrive me, for I am surely slain."

  "You are surely a nuisance, is what you are," Lope said, but he couldn't help laughing.

  No
more than a mile or so separated Westminster from London, with the space between the two cities only a bit less crowded than either one of them. De Vega never had the sensation of truly being out in the country, as he would have while traveling between a couple of towns in Spain. Whenever he looked to the left, a forest of sails on the Thames reminded him how brash and busy this part of the world was.

  "Fancy houses," Diego remarked as they rode into Westminster. "You can tell this is a place for rich people. All the poor men-all the honest men-are back in London."

  Lope couldn't help laughing at that, either, but for a rather different reason. London drew the ambitious, the hungry, the desperate from all over England. A lot of them discovered that, no matter how ambitious and desperate they were, they stayed hungry. The hungrier they got, the less likely they were to stay honest. London had more thieves and robbers than any other three cities Lope could imagine.

  Those fancy houses drew his eye, too-again, for a different reason. "This is Drury Lane," he said. "Lord Burghley lives here, who was Elizabeth's chief minister. Anthony Bacon lived here, too, till the accursed sodomite fled the kingdom."

  "Sounds like a good street for a fire," Diego said. "Just by accident, of course." He winked.

  "I don't know what you're talking about," Lope answered, deadpan. The two of them exchanged knowing looks.

  The Thames bent towards the south. The road followed it. De Vega and Diego rode past a tilt-yard and several new tenements before coming to a large area on their left enclosed by a brick wall. Over the top of the wall loomed the upper stories of some impressive buildings. "What's that?" Diego asked, pointing to the enclosure.

  "That? That is Scotland," Lope said.

  Diego scornfully tossed his head. "You can't fool me, boss. You've been scaring me with Scotland for a while now. I know what it is-that kingdom up north of here, the one where the wild men live."

  "Some of the wild men," Lope amended. "But that yard, that too is Scotland." He crossed himself to show he was telling the truth. "When the King of the wild men comes to visit England, he is housed there, and so it took its name." He wished the present King of Scotland would come to visit England. But, despite honeyed invitations, Protestant James VI was too canny to thrust his head into the Catholic lion's mouth. Lope continued, "And there beyond lies Whitehall, where the company shall perform."