Ruled Britannia Read online

  He joined a line of soldiers who yawned and knuckled their red eyes. Breakfast was wine and a cruet of olive oil-both imported from Spain, as neither the grape nor the olive flourished in this northern clime-and half a loaf of brown bread. The bread was local, and at least as good as he would have had back in Madrid.

  He was just finishing when his superior's servant came up to him. Captain GuzmA?n's Enrique was the opposite of his own Diego in every way: tall, thin, smarter than a servant had any business being, and alarmingly diligent. "Good day, Lieutenant," Enrique said. "My principal requests the honor of your company at your earliest convenience."

  Gulping down the last of the wine, Lope got to his feet. "I am at his Excellency's service, of course." No matter how flowery a servant made an order, an order it remained.

  No matter how much Lope hurried, Enrique got to Guzman's office ahead of him. "Here's de Vega," he told GuzmA?n in dismissive tones. As a captain's man, he naturally looked down his nose at a creature so lowly as a lieutenant, even a senior lieutenant.

  " Buenos dias, your Excellency," Lope said as he walked in. He swept off his hat and bowed.

  "Good day," Captain Baltasar Guzman replied, nodding without rising from his seat. He was a dapper little man whose mustaches and chin beard remained wispy with youth: though Lope's superior, he was a good fifteen years younger. He had some sort of connection with the great noble house of GuzmA?n-the house of, among others, the Duke of Medina Sidonia, commander of the Armada-which explained his rank. He wasn't a bad officer, though, in spite of that. Enrique wouldn't let him be a bad officer, Lope thought.

  "And how may I serve you today, your Excellency?" he asked.

  Captain Guzman wagged a forefinger at him. "I hear you were out late last night."

  "She was very pretty," de Vega replied with dignity. "Very friendly, too."

  "No doubt," Guzman said dryly. "Our job, though, is to hunt down the English who are not friendly to King Philip, God bless him, not to seek out those who are."

  "I wasn't on duty then." Lope tried to change the subject: "Is there any new word on his Majesty's health?"

  "He's dying," Baltasar Guzman said, and crossed himself. "The gout, the sores. Last I heard, those are getting worse. He may go before the Lord tomorrow, he may last a year, he may even last two. But dying he is."

  Lope crossed himself, too. "Surely his son will prove as illustrious as he has himself."

  "Surely," GuzmA?n said, and would not meet his eyes. Philip II was no great captain, no warrior whom men would follow into battle with a song on their lips and in their hearts. But such captains did his bidding. In his more than forty years of gray, competent rule, he had beaten back the Turks in the Mediterranean and brought England and Holland out of heresy and back into the embrace of the Catholic Church. More flamboyant men had accomplished far less.

  His son, the prince who would be Philip III, also was not flamboyant. But, from everything Lope de Vega had heard-from everything everyone had heard-he was not particularly competent, either. Lope said, "God will protect us, as He has till now."

  Guzman crossed himself again. "May it be so." Now he did look de Vega full in the face. "And, of course, our duty is to help God as best we can. What are your plans for today, Lieutenant? — leaving Englishwomen out of the bargain, I mean."

  "There is to be a play this afternoon at the Theatre," Lope replied. "I shall go there and stand among the groundlings, listen to them, see the play, and chat with the actors afterwards if I have the chance."

  "A duty you hate, I'm sure," Captain GuzmA?n said. "I do wonder whether your attendance is for the benefit of Queen Isabella and King Albert, God bless them; for the benefit of King Philip, God bless him and keep him; or for the benefit of one Lope FA©lix de Vega Carpio."

  "And may God bless me as well," de Vega said. Guzman's nod looked grudging, but it was a nod. Lope went on, "When I stand among the ordinary English, I hear their grumbles. And when I mingle with the actors, I may hear more. Some of them are more than actors. Some of them have connections with the English nobles who are their patrons. Some of them, now and again, do their patrons' bidding."

  "Someof them indeed have connections with their patrons." Guzman gave the word an obscene twist.

  But then he sighed. "Still, I can't say you're wrong. Some of them are spies, and so. and so, Lieutenant, I know you are mixing pleasure with your business, but I cannot tell you not to do it. I want a full report, in writing, when you get back."

  "Just as you say, your Excellency, so shall it be," Lope promised, doing his best to hide his relief. He turned to leave.

  Baltasar Guzman let him take one step toward the door, then raised a finger and stopped him in his tracks. "Oh-one other thing, de Vega."

  "Your Excellency?"

  "I want a report that deals with matters political. Literary criticism has its place. I do not argue with that.

  Its place, however, is not here. Understand me?"

  "Yes, your Excellency." You're a Philistine, your Excellency. It's God's own miracle you can read and write at all, your Excellency. But GuzmA?n was the man with the rank. Guzman was the man with the family.

  Guzman was also the man with the literate, intelligent, curious servant. As de Vega left the office, Enrique said, "Sir, your English is much better than mine. I would be glad to hear what these playwrights are doing, to compare them to our own."

  Keeping Enrique sweet might help keep Captain Guzman sweet. And Lope was passionate about the theatre. He wished his useless Diego were passionate about anything but slumber. "Of course, Enrique. When I get back."

  The Theatre stood in Shoreditch, beyond the walls of London and, in fact, beyond the jurisdiction of the city. Before the Catholic restoration, the grim Protestants who called themselves Puritans had kept theatres out of London proper. Many of the same men still governed the capital of England. They had made a peace of sorts with the Church, but not with gaiety; there still were no theatres within the bounds of the city.

  Lope's cloak and hat shielded him from the endless autumn drizzle as he made his way out through Bishopsgate and up Shoreditch High Street. Leaving the wall behind didn't mean leaving behind what still seemed like a city, even if it was no longer exactly London. Stinking tenements lined narrow streets and leaned toward one another above them. Here a man might be murdered without even the excuse of sleeping with another man's wife. Lope kept a hand on the hilt of his rapier and strode on with a determination that warned all and sundry he would be hard to bring down. Instead of troubling him, people scrambled

  out of his way. Better to be bold, he thought.

  Stews flourished beyond the reach of the London city government, too. A skinny, dirty bare-breasted woman leaned out a window and called to de Vega: "How about it, handsome?"

  What went through his mind was, God grant I never grow so desperate. He swept off his hat, bowed, and kept walking. "Cheap bugger!" she shouted after him. "Marican! " Did she know him for a Spaniard, or was that just another insult, one new here since the coming of the Armada? He never found out.

  Buildings ended. Fields, orchards, and garden plots began. Plenty of people were making their way toward the Theatre. Lope tremendously admired it and the other theatres on the outskirts of London. No such places in which to put on plays existed in Spain. There, actors performed in a square in front of a tavern, with the audience looking down from the buildings on the other three sides of that square. Real playhouses. Did the Englishmen know how lucky they were? He doubted it. From all he'd seen, they seldom did.

  Though brightened with paint, the Theatre's timbers were themselves old and faded; the three-story polygonal building had been standing for more than twenty years. Gay banners on the roof helped draw a crowd. So did a big, colorful signboard above the entrance, advertising the day's show:

  IF YOU LIKE IT, A NEW COMEDY BY WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. Dissolute-looking men were making pennies for drink by going-staggering-through the streets bawling out the name of t
he play.

  Lope paid his penny at the door. "Groundling!" called the man who took the coin. Another man directed de Vega to the standing room around the brightly painted stage, where he jostled his way forward. Had he paid tuppence or threepence, he could have had a seat in one of the galleries looking down on the action. Here among the poorer folk, though, he would likely find more of interest.

  Hawkers fought through the press, selling sausages and pasties and cider and beer. Lope bought a sausage and a cup of cider. He stood there chewing and sipping, guarding his place with his elbows as he listened to the men and women around him.

  "Nasty way to die, burning," a white-bearded fellow remarked.

  "You ever see anybody braver nor Parsons Stubbes the other day?" a woman said. "Couldn't be nobody braver. God's bound to love a man like that-only stands to reason. I expect he's up in heaven right now."

  "How about them what burned him?" another man asked.

  "Oh, I don't know anything about that," the woman answered quickly. She'd already said too much, and realized it, but she wouldn't say any more. Nine years of the Inquisition had taught these talkative people something, at least, of holding their tongues. And before that they'd had a generation of stern heresy under Elizabeth, and before that Catholicism under Mary and Philip, and before that more heresy under Henry VIII. They'd swung back and forth so many times, it was a marvel they hadn't looked toward the Turks and had a go at being Mahometans for a while.

  Then such thoughts left him, for two actors appeared on stage, and the play began. Lope had to give all his attention to it. His English was good, but not so good that he could follow the language when quickly spoken without listening hard. And Shakespeare, as was his habit, had cooked up a more complicated plot than any Spanish playwright would have thought of using: squabbling noble brothers, the younger having usurped the elder's place as duke; the quarreling sons of a knight loyal to the exiled rightful duke, and the daughters of the rightful duke and his brother.

  Those "daughters," Rosalind and Celia, almost took Lope out of the play for a moment. As was the English practice, they were played by beardless boys with unbroken voices. Women didn't act on stage here, as they'd begun to do in Spain. One of the boys playing the daughters was noticeably better at giving the impression of femininity than the other. Had the company had real actresses to work with, the problem wouldn't have arisen.

  But Shakespeare, as de Vega had seen him do in other plays, used English conventions to advantage.

  Rosalind disguised herself as a boy to escape the court of her wicked uncle: a boy playing a girl playing a boy. And then a minor character playing a feminine role fell for "him": a boy playing a girl in love with a boy playing a girl playing a boy. Lope couldn't help howling laughter. He was tempted to count on his fingers to keep track of who was who, or of who was supposed to be who.

  Spanish plays ran to three acts. Shakespeare, following English custom, had five acts-about two hours-in which to wrap up all the loose ends he'd introduced and all the hares he'd started. He did it, too, getting the daughters of the two noblemen married to the sons of the knight and having the usurping duke retire to a monastery so his older brother could reclaim the throne.

  How would the Englishman have managed that if his kingdom were still Protestant? Lope wondered as the boy playing Rosalind, the better actor, delivered an epilogue asking the audience for applause. That struck Lope as almost as unnatural as not employing actresses. He'd used the last couple of lines in his plays to say farewell, but he never would have written in a whole speech.

  But it didn't bother the people around him. They clapped their hands and stamped their feet and shouted till his ears rang. The actors came out to take their bows. Richard Burbage, who'd played the usurping duke, made a leg in a robe King Philip wouldn't have been ashamed to wear. His crown was surely polished brass, not gold, but it gleamed brightly. Shakespeare, who'd played his older brother, also had on a royal robe, but one that was much less splendid, as befit his forest exile- a nice touch, Lope thought. When Shakespeare doffed his brass crown, his own crown gleamed brightly, too. Lope, who had all his hair, noted that with smug amusement.

  One further advantage of a stage-from the company's point of view-was that they could sell a few seats right up on the edge of it, and charge more for those than for any others in the house. The men and women who rose from those seats to applaud showed more velvet and lace and threadwork of gold and silver than all the groundlings put together. Pearls and precious stones glittered in the women's hair. Gold gleamed on the men's belts, and on their scabbards, and on the hilts of their rapiers.

  Despite those visible signs of wealth and power, the groundlings behind the rich folk weren't shy about making their views known. "Sit you down!" they shouted, and "We came to see the players, not your arses!" and "God sees through you, but we can't!"

  One of the grandees half turned and set a beringed hand on the fancy hilt of his sword. A flying chunk of sausage smirched his orange doublet with grease. Safe in the anonymity of the crowd, another groundling threw something else, which flew past the nobleman and bounced halfway across the stage. The poor folk in their frowzy wool raised a cheer.

  Just as a Spanish noble would have done, the Englishman purpled with fury. But the woman beside him, whose neckline was even more striking than her pile of blond curls, set a hand on his sleeve and said something in a low voice. His reply was anything but low, and thoroughly sulfurous. She spoke again, as if to say, What can you do? You can't kill them all. Grudgingly, he turned away from the groundlings, though his back still radiated fury. They jeered louder than ever.

  After the last bow, the players went back into the tiring room behind the stage to change into their everyday clothes once more. Most of the crowd filed out through the narrow doorways by which they'd entered. Friends and sweethearts of the company pressed forward to join the actors backstage. So did the stagestruck: would-be actors, would-be writers, would-be friends and sweethearts.

  The tireman's assistants-a couple of big, burly men who kept cudgels close by-stood in front of the doors leading to the tiring room. Lope de Vega, though, had no trouble; he went backstage after every performance he attended. "God give you good day, Master Lope," one of the assistants said, doffing his cap and standing aside to let the Spaniard pass.

  "And to you also, Edward," de Vega replied. "What thought you of the show today?"

  "We had us a good house," Edward said-the first worry of any man in an acting company. Then he blinked. "Oh, d'you mean the play?"

  "Indeed yes, the play," Lope said. "So much going on there, almost all at once."

  "Master Will don't write 'em simple," the tireman's assistant agreed. "But he hath the knack of helping folk recall who's who, and meseems the crowd followed tolerably well." Nodding, de Vega passed by.

  Edward glowered at the Englishman behind him. "And who are you, friend?"

  Chaos reigned in the tiring room. Some of the players were still in costume; some had already returned to the drabber wear normal to men and boys of their class; and some, between the one stage and the other, wore very little. They took near nudity in stride, as Spanish actors would have done. The room was close with the reek of sweat and perfume and torch smoke.

  Lope moved through as best he could, shaking hands, bowing when he had the space, and congratulating the players. Someone-he didn't see who-handed him a leather drinking jack. Sipping, he found it full of sweet, strong Spanish wine. The English were even fonder of it than his own folk, perhaps because they had to import it and couldn't take it for granted.

  He bumped into a woman-someone's wife, he couldn't remember whose. "So sorry, my lady," he said.

  "With your permission?" He bowed over her hand and kissed it. She smiled back in a manner that might have been encouraging.

  "Watch out for Master Lope," round-faced Will Kemp said behind him. "Lope the loup, Lope the lobo."

  The company clown howled wolfishly. Raucous laughter ro
se. Lope joined it, the easiest way he knew to deflect suspicion. The woman turned to talk to an Englishman, so there was no suspicion to deflect, anyhow. Aes la vida, de Vega thought, and sighed.

  He congratulated Burbage and the boy who'd played Rosalind. "I thank you kindly, sir," the youth replied. In his powder and paint, he still looked quite feminine-even tempting-but his natural voice, though not yet a man's, was deeper than the one he'd used on stage. He wouldn't be able to pretend to womanhood much longer.

  At last, de Vega made his way to Shakespeare. The actor and playwright stood off in a corner, talking shop with darkly handsome Christopher Marlowe. Lope bowed in delight. "My two favorites of the English stage, here together!" he cried.

  "Good day-or should I say good even, Master de Vega?" Shakespeare replied. "Have you met Master Marlowe here?" To Marlowe, he added, "Lieutenant de Vega writes plays in Spanish, and more than once hath trodden the boards with Lord Westmorland's Men as extra."

  "Indeed?" Marlowe murmured. His cool, dark eyes measured Lope. "How. versatile of him." He nodded and bowed. "A pleasure to make your acquaintance, sir."

  "We have met once or twice, sir, but how can I be surprised if you recall it not?" de Vega said. By the way Marlowe eyed him, though, he wondered if the Englishman ever forgot anything. Enrique, Captain GuzmA?n's servant, had that same too-clever-by-half look, and he never did.

  But then Lope started talking shop with the English playwrights, and forgot everything else for a while. He didn't worry about spying. He didn't even worry about the pretty women in the room. What did any of that matter, next to the passion for the word, for the play, the three men shared?

  A torch guttered out, sending shadows swooping through the tiring room, filling a quarter of it with darkness, and adding the reek of hot fat to the crowded air. Christopher Marlowe clapped a hand to his forehead in one of the melodramatic gestures he used so naturally. " 'Struth!" he burst out. "Would the poxy Spaniard never leave?"

  Shakespeare stood several inches taller. He set a hand on the other playwright's shoulder. "However long he lingered, he's gone now, Kit. He's harmless, or as harmless as a man of his kingdom can be. Mad for the stage, as you heard."