Ruled Britannia (18 page)

The groundlings streamed out of the Theatre. By their buzz, they liked what they'd seen. Shakespeare retreated to the tiring room to don shoes and doublet and hat and talk things over with the company and with the players and poets and other folk who got past the glower of the tireman's burly helpers.

In came Christopher Marlowe, a pipe of tobacco in his mouth. As soon as Shakespeare caught the first whiff of smoke, he started to cough. “Marry, Kit, put it by, I prithee,” he said.

“I will not, by God,” Marlowe said, and took another puff. His eye swung to the beardless youth who'd played Ophelia, and who was now getting back into the clothes proper to his sex. “All they who love not tobacco and boys are fools. Why, holy communion would have been much better being administered in a tobacco pipe.”

He reveled in scandal and blasphemy. Knowing as much, Shakespeare didn't react with the horror his fellow poet tried to rouse. Instead, he said, “Put it by, or I'll break it, and that gladly. Having spent the whole of the first act beneath the stage, I'm smoked and to spare, smoked as a Warwickshire sausage.”

“Ah. Then you have reason for asking. I'll do't.” And Marlowe did, knocking the pipe against the sole of his shoe and grinding out the coals with his foot. He gave Shakespeare a mocking bow. “Your servant, sir.”

“Gramercy.” Shakespeare returned the bow as if he hadn't noticed the mockery. Nothing could be better calculated to annoy Marlowe.

Or so he thought, especially when Marlowe gave him a shark's smile and said, “Damn you again, Will.”

“What, for speaking you soft? An I huff and fume, will't like you better?”

“No, no, no.” Marlowe made as if to push him away. “I know the difference 'twixt small and great.
De minibus non curat lex
. No, damn you for your
Prince of Denmark
.”

This time, Shakespeare bowed in earnest. “Praise from the master's praise indeed.”

“In this play, you are my master. And, since I fancy not being mastered, I aim t'overcome you. There are Grecian pots, 'tis said, with figures limned in contortions wild, and with the painter's brag writ above 'em: ‘As Thus-and-So, my rival, never did.' After first seeing
The Prince of Denmark
last year, I set to work on
Yseult and Tristan
, afore which I
shall not write, ‘As Shakespeare never did,' but, when you watch it, you may take the thought as there.”

“And then my turn will come round again, to see how I may outmatch you.” Shakespeare's early tragedies owed a good deal to Marlowe, who'd led the theatre when Shakespeare came to London from his provincial home. Since then, Marlowe had chased him more often than the reverse. “We do spur each other on.”

“We do,” Marlowe agreed. “But you have in your flanks for now different spurs, of one sort . . . and another.” He gave Shakespeare a sly look. “You're to make the Spaniards a
King Philip
?”

“I am.” Shakespeare wasn't surprised Marlowe had heard about that. He didn't need to keep it secret, as he did the other piece. Of course, Marlowe knew about that, or something about that, too. Shakespeare wished he didn't. The other poet did not know how to keep his mouth shut.

Marlowe proved as much now, saying, “But will they see it? Or will the players strut the stage in other parts?”

Shakespeare had been pondering the same question. He didn't care to discuss it with anyone else, especially in the crowded tiring room, and most especially. . . . “Have a care,” he hissed. “The Spaniard comes. Would you have had
him
hear you prattle of boys and tobacco and communion?”

“Danger is my meat and drink,” Marlowe answered blithely, and Shakespeare feared that was true. Making a leg like a courtier, the other poet gave Lope de Vega his most charming smile. Even Shakespeare, for whom it was not intended, felt its force. “Master Lope!” Marlowe exclaimed. “Always a pleasure, and an honor.”

“No, no—the pleasure is mine.” De Vega returned the bow. He looked dapper and dangerous, the rapier on his hip seeming a part of him.

“I hear your comedy on the foolish woman was a great success,” Marlowe said. Shakespeare had heard nothing of the sort. The less he heard of the Spaniards' doings, the happier he was. Marlowe went on, “ 'Tis pity I have not Spanish enough to follow comfortably, else I had come to see how you wrought.”

Lope de Vega bowed again. “You are too kind.”

“By no means, sir.” Yes, when Marlowe chose, he could charm the birds from the trees—
as can any serpent
, Shakespeare thought uneasily.

The Spaniard turned to him. “You will tell me at once, Master
Shakespeare: is the Prince of Denmark mad, or doth he but feign his affliction?”

Marlowe's eyes gleamed. “I have asked myself that very question. So would any man of sense, on seeing the play. But here we have a man of better sense, for he asks not himself but the poet!”

“He is but mad north-northwest,” Shakespeare answered. “When the wind is southerly he knows a hawk from a handsaw.”

“Fie on you!” de Vega said, as Marlowe burst out laughing. Lope went on, “You give back the Prince's words, not your own.”

“But, good my sir, if the Prince's words be not my own, whose then are they?” Shakespeare said, his voice as innocent as he could make it. “Certes, I purpose the question being asked. And I purpose each hearer to answer in himself, for himself.”

“Men seek God and, seeking, find Him—so saith the Grecian poet,” Marlowe observed. “Who'd have thought the like held for madness?”

He and Shakespeare could, if they chose, hash it out over pint after pint of bitter beer. If Lope de Vega reckoned himself insulted, or trifled with, that was a more serious matter. But the Spaniard seemed willing to let it pass. He changed the subject: “You are to write a play on the life of his Most Catholic Majesty, I hear.”

“I have been given that privilege, yes,” Shakespeare said,
privilege
striking him as a better word than
cross
.

“You are fortunate in your subject, his Majesty in his poet,” de Vega said—he made no mean courtier himself. Marlowe's glance was half rueful, half scornful. Lope continued, “It will please me very much to help you in your enterprise however I may.”

“Truly, sir, you are too kind.” The last thing Shakespeare wanted was Lope's help. “But there's no need for—”

“No, no.” Lope waved his protest aside. “I insist.” He grinned disarmingly. “For, by helping you, I help myself to coming to the Theatre whenever I please. Should you desire a veritable
hombre de España
to play a Spaniard, nothing would like me better.”

Shakespeare wanted to shriek. He couldn't tell de Vega everything he wanted to, or even a fraction of it. But . . . “
Tacite
, Will,” Marlowe said quickly.

In Latin, that meant
be quiet
. In English, it would have been good advice. Even in Latin, it was good advice. But was it also something more? Was it an allusion to Tacitus and to the
Annals
? How much did Marlowe know? How much did he want to show that he knew? And
how much did Lope know, and how much was Marlowe liable to reveal to him for no more reason than that he could not take the good advice he so casually gave?

One of Lieutenant de Vega's eyebrows rose. In slow Latin of his own, he asked, “And why should Magister Guglielmus keep silent, I pray you?”

Damn you, Kit
, Shakespeare thought. But Marlowe, a university man as fluent in Latin as in English, kept right on in the ancient tongue: “Why? To keep from offering you the role of Philip himself, of course. I doubt his company would stand for it, and I am certain Master Burbage's fury at being balked of the hero's role would know no bounds.” He talked himself out of trouble almost as readily as he talked himself into it.

Richard Burbage had little Latin, but he did have the player's ability to hear his name mentioned at a remarkable distance. He came up to Marlowe and asked, “What said you of me, sir?” By the way he leaned forward and set his right hand on his belt near his sword, he would make Marlowe regret it if the answer were not to his liking.

But Marlowe spoke in English as he had in Latin: “I said you would mislike it, did Lieutenant de Vega here take the part of King Philip in the play Will is to write. He hath graciously offered to attempt some role in the drama, but that, meseems, were a part too great.”

Just for a heartbeat, Burbage's eyes flashed to Shakespeare. The poet gave back a bland, blank face. He knew he couldn't trust the Spaniard, and didn't know he could trust Christopher Marlowe. If Marlowe had hoped to learn more than he already knew from the actor, he got little, for Burbage laughed, slapped him on the back, and said, “Why, Kit, no man can have a part too great—thus say the ladies, any road.”

Shakespeare's laugh was relieved, Marlowe's somewhat forced—he had scant interest in or experience of what the ladies said in such matters. Lope de Vega scratched his head. “ 'Tis a jest,” he said. “I know't must be, but I apprehend it not.” After Shakespeare explained it, de Vega laughed, too, and bowed to Burbage. “You have a wit of your own, sir, and not just with another's words in your mouth.”

Will Kemp reckons otherwise
, Shakespeare thought. Burbage bowed back to the Spaniard. “You are too kind, sir,” he purred, meaning nothing else but,
I'm more clever than either of these two, and if I but wrote. . . .
He had a player's vanity, too, in full measure. It sometimes irked Shakespeare. Today he gladly forgave it. He would have forgiven anything that put the Spaniard off the scent.

But how, dear God, am I to write Lord Burghley's play with de Vega ever sniffing about? And even if Thou shouldst work a miracle, for that I may write it, how can we rehearse it? How can we offer it forth?
He waited hopefully. As he'd feared, though, God gave no answers.

 

L
OPE DE
V
EGA
couldn't have screamed louder or more painfully as a betrayed lover. He knew that for a fact; he'd screamed such screams before. This, however . . . “But, sir, you promised me!” he cried.

“I am sorry, Lieutenant,” said Captain Guzmán, who sounded not sorry in the least. “I warned that, in an emergency, I would shift your duty. Here we have an emergency, and so I shall shift you.”

“A likely story.” Lope was convinced his superior intended to drive him mad. Guzmán knew how to make his intentions real, too. “What kind of emergency?”

“A soothsayer, prophesying against Spain and against King Philip,” Guzmán answered.

“Oh,” Lope said in crestfallen tones. Unfortunately, that
was
an emergency. Soothsayers and witches and what the English called cunning men caused no end of trouble. But then he had a brighter, more hopeful thought. “Could not the holy inquisitors deal with this false prophet? Surely such a rogue breaks God's law before he breaks man's.”

Baltasar Guzmán shook his head. “They call it treason first and blasphemy only afterwards. They have washed their hands of the fellow.”

“As Pilate did with our Lord,” de Vega said bitterly.

“Senior Lieutenant . . .” Guzmán drummed his fingers on the desk. “Senior Lieutenant, I bear you no ill will. You should thank God and the Virgin and the saints that I bear you no ill will. Were it otherwise, the Inquisition would hear of that remark, and then, in short order, you would hear from the Inquisition. You have your pen, and some freedom in how you use it. You would be wise to guard your tongue.”

He was right. That hurt worse than anything else. “I thank you, your Excellency,” Lope mumbled, hating to have to thank the man at whom he was furious. He sighed. “Well, if there's no help for it, I'd best get the business over with as fast as I can. Who is this soothsayer, and where can I find him?”

“He is called John . . . Walsh.” Captain Guzmán made heavy going of the English surname. “He dwells in”—the officer checked his notes—“in the ward called Billingsgate, in Pudding Lane. He is by trade a
butcher of hogs, but he is to be found more often in a tavern than anywhere else.”

“May I find him in a tavern!” Lope exclaimed. “I know Pudding Lane too well, and know its stinks. They make so much offal there, it goes in dung boats down to the Thames.”

“Wherever you find him, seize him and clap him in gaol. We'll try him and put him to death and be rid of him once for all,” Guzmán said. As de Vega turned to go, his superior held up a hand. “Wait. Don't hunt this, ah, Walsh yourself. Take a squad of soldiers. Better, take two. When you catch him, the Englishmen he has fooled are liable to try a rescue. You will want swords and pikes and guns at your back.”

“Very well, sir.” De Vega wasn't sure whether it was very well or not. Alone, he might slip in and get away with John Walsh with no one else the wiser. With a couple of squads at his back, he had no hope of that. But Captain Guzmán had a point. If he went after Walsh by himself and got into trouble, he wouldn't come out of Billingsgate Ward again. How had Shakespeare put it in
Alcibiades
?
The better part of valor is discretion
—that was the line that had stuck in Lope's memory.