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  "Think you so?" Marlowe said, and Shakespeare nodded. Marlowe rolled his eyes. "And think you babes are hid 'neath cabbage leaves for their mothers to find?"

  The tireman coughed. He wanted the room empty so he could lock up the precious costumes and go home. Only a few people were left now, still hashing over what they'd done, what they might have done, what they would do the next time they put on If You Like It. Even Will Kemp, a law unto himself, took the tireman seriously. With a mocking bow to those who remained, he swept out the door.

  Irked, Shakespeare stayed where he was. He snapped, "I know whence babes come-I know better than you, by God." Even in the dim, uncertain light left in the tiring room, he saw Marlowe flush. The other poet chased boys as avidly as prickproud Lope went after other men's wives.

  "All right, Will." Marlowe visibly held in his anger. "You're no blushing maid-be it so stipulated. But he loves us not for ourselves alone. Were we wenches, then yes, mayhap. Things being as they are. " He shook his head.

  "What, you reckon Lope Stagestruck an intelligencer?" Shakespeare almost laughed in his face. "Where's the reason behind that?"

  " Imprimis, he's a Spaniard. Secundus, he's a man. Tertius, an you suspect a man not, he'll ever prove the viper who ups and stings you."

  He meant every word. Shakespeare saw as much. He let out a sigh as exasperated as the tireman's cough. "A pretty world wherein you must live, Kit, there within the fortress of your skull."

  "I do live," Marlowe said, "and I purpose living some while longer, too. Were I so careless as you, I had died ten times over ere now. Quarrels are easy enough to frame: a swaggering bravo imagining an insult in the street, peradventure, or over the reckoning in a little room. You're a better man than I am. See to it your goodness harms you not."

  "Gentlemen, please," the tireman said, something close to despair in his voice.

  Shakespeare walked out of the Theatre, Marlowe in his wake. Autumn twilight came early, and was falling fast. Before long, the gray clouds overhead would turn black. With the play over, the streets around the Theatre were almost empty. As he started back toward London and his lodgings, Shakespeare said, "Well, the Spaniard's not about. What would you say to me you could not say within the spying rascal's hearing?"

  "You make a mock of it," Marlowe said. "One day you'll be sorry-God grant it be not soon. What would I say? I've said already more than I would say."

  "Then say no more, and have done." Shakespeare lengthened his stride; Marlowe had to half trot to try to keep up. Over his shoulder, Shakespeare added, "Enough real worries in the world-aye, enough and to spare-without the hobgoblins bubbling from the too fertile cauldron of your fears."

  "Damn you, will you listen to me?" Marlowe shouted. A limping old woman carrying a pail of water stared at him.

  "Listen? How, when you will not speak, save only in riddles?" But Shakespeare stopped.

  Marlowe took a deep breath. Slowly, deliberately, he let it out. "Hear me plain, then," he said, and gave Shakespeare a mocking bow. "I should like you to meet a friend of mine."

  "A friend?" Shakespeare said in surprise. As far as he knew-as far as anyone in London knew-Christopher Marlowe neither had nor particularly wanted friends. He did have a great many acquaintances of one degree of intimacy or another, that being defined by how useful they proved to him.

  He was almost as aware of the lack as were other folk. He hesitated before nodding, and added, "A man with whom I've been yoked in harness some little while."

  "Yoked in harness of what sort?" Shakespeare asked.

  "Side by side, vile-minded lecher, not fore and aft," Marlowe said. " 'Tis a matter of business on which he's fain to make your acquaintance." His shoulders hunched. He glared down at the ground. He was furious, and not trying hard at all to hide it.

  Shakespeare judged he would burst like the hellburner of Antwerp if not humored. Marlowe in a temper was nothing to take lightly, so Shakespeare said, "I'll meet him, and right gladly, too, whosoever he may be. Bring him to my ordinary while I dine or sup, an't please you."

  "I'll do't," Marlowe said, though he sounded far from pleased. If anything, he seemed angrier than ever.

  In God's name, what now? Shakespeare wondered. Now, instead of hastening on toward Bishopsgate, he stopped in his tracks. Marlowe was the one who kept striding on before also halting a few paces farther on. "I have said I will do as you would have me do, Kit," Shakespeare said. "Wherefore, then, wax you wroth with me still?"

  "I do not." Marlowe flung the three words at him and started on again.

  "What then?" Now Shakespeare had to hurry after him-either that or shout after him and make their talk a public matter for any who cared to hear it. He asked the only question that occurred to him: "If not for me, is your anger for your a€?friend'?"

  "It is." Two more words, bitten off short.

  "Here's a tangled coil!" Shakespeare exclaimed. "Why such fury for him?"

  "Because he's fain to see you in this business," Marlowe said sullenly.

  By then, with the darkness coming on fast, with a few drops of drizzle falling cold on his hand, Shakespeare was beginning to lose his temper, too. "Enough of riddles, of puzzles, of conundrums," he said. "Do me the honor, do me the courtesy, of speaking plain."

  "I could speak no plainer-because he's fain to see you in this business." But then, unwillingly, Marlowe made it a great deal plainer: "Because he's fain to see you, and not me. Damn you." He hurried off, leaning forward as if into a heavy wind.

  "Oh, Kit!" Now Shakespeare knew exactly where the trouble lay. What he did not know was whether he could mend it. Marlowe had been a success in London before Shakespeare rose from performing in plays to trying to write them. Some of Shakespeare's early dramas bore Marlowe's stamp heavily upon them. If a man imitate, let him imitate the best, Shakespeare thought.

  Marlowe remained popular even now. He made a living by his pen, as few could. But those who had given him first place now rated him second. For a proud man, as he surely was, that had to grate. If the

  "business" had to do with the theatre, if his "friend" wanted Shakespeare and not him. No wonder he was scowling.

  "Wait!" Shakespeare called, and loped after him. "Shall I tell this cullion that, if he be your friend, the business should be yours?"

  To his surprise, the other playwright shook his head. "Nay. He hath reason. For what he purposes, you were the better choice. I would 'twere otherwise, but the world is as it is, not as we would have it."

  "You intrigue me mightily, and perplex me, too," Shakespeare said.

  Marlowe's laugh held more bile than mirth. "And I might say the same of you, Will. Did you tender me this plum, I'd not offer it back again. You may be sure of that."

  Shakespeare was. In a cutthroat business, Marlowe owned sharper knives than most. Unlike some, he seldom bothered pretending otherwise. After a moment's thought, Shakespeare said, "God be praised, I am not so hungry I needs must take bread from another man's mouth."

  "Ah, dear Will. An there be a God, He might do worse than hear praises from such as you. You're a blockhead, but an honest blockhead." Marlowe stood up on tiptoe to kiss him on the cheek. "I'll bring the fellow to your ordinary at eventide tomorrow-I know the place you favor. Till then." He hurried toward Bishopsgate. This time, the set of his shoulders said Shakespeare would have been unwelcome had he tried to stay up with him.

  With a sigh, Shakespeare trudged down Shoreditch High Street after him. Just when a man looked like understanding Marlowe, he would do something like that. He could not praise without putting a poison sting in amongst the honey, but the kiss had been, or at least had seemed, real.

  "Hurry up, hurry up," guards at the gate called. "Get on in, the lot of you." They were a mixed lot, Englishmen and rawboned Irish mercenaries. The Irish soldiers looked achingly eager to kill someone, anyone. Rumor said they ate human flesh. Shakespeare didn't care to find out if rumor were true. Not meeting their fierce, falconlike gazes, he scuttled into th
e city.

  His lodgings were in Bishopsgate Ward, not far from the wall, in a house owned by a widow who made her living by letting out most of the space. He had his own bed, but two others crowded the room where he slept. One of the men who shared the chamber, a glazier named Jack Street, had a snore that sounded like a lion's roar. The other, a lively little fellow called Peter Foster, called himself a tinker. Shakespeare suspected he was a sneakthief. He didn't foul his own nest, though; nothing had ever gone missing at the lodging house.

  "You're late today, Master William," said Jane Kendall, Shakespeare's landlady. "By Our Lady, I hope all went well at the Theatre." She made the sign of the cross. From things she'd said over the couple of years he'd lived there, she'd been a Catholic even before the Armada restored England's allegiance to Rome.

  "Well enough, I thank you," he replied. "Sometimes, when talking amongst ourselves after the play, we do lose track of time." With so many people living so close together, secrets were hard to keep. Telling a piece of the truth often proved the best way to keep all of it from coming out.

  "And the house was full?" Widow Kendall persisted.

  "Near enough." Shakespeare smiled and made a leg at her, as if she were a pretty young noblewoman, not a frowzy, gray-haired tallowchandler's widow. "Never fear. I'll have no trouble with the month's rent."

  She giggled and simpered like a young girl, too. But when she said, "That I'm glad to hear," her voice held nothing but truth. A lodger without his rent became in short order a former lodger out on the street.

  Still, he'd pleased her, for she went on, "There's new-brewed ale in the kitchen. Take a mug, if you care to."

  "That I will, and right gladly." Shakespeare fitted action to word. The widow made good ale. Hopped beer, these days, was commoner than the older drink, for it soured much more slowly. He savored the mug, and, when his landlady continued to look benign, took another. Nicely warmed, he said, "Now I'm to the ordinary for supper."

  She nodded. "Don't forget the hour and keep scribbling till past curfew," she warned.

  "I shan't." I hope I shan't, Shakespeare thought. Or do I? The eatery made a better place to work than the lodging house. On nights when ideas seemed to flow straight from his mind onto the page, he could and sometimes did lose track of time. He'd ducked home past patrols more than once.

  From the chest by his bed, he took his second-best spoon-pewter-a couple of quills, a knife to trim them, ink, and three sheets of paper. He sometimes wished he followed a less expensive calling; each sheet cost more than a loaf of bread. He locked the chest once more, then hurried off to the ordinary around the corner. He sat down at the table with the biggest, fattest candle on it: he wanted the best light he could find for writing.

  A serving woman came up to him. "Good even, Master Will. What'll you have?"

  "Hello, Kate. What's the threepenny tonight?"

  "Kidney pie, and monstrous good," she said. He nodded. She brought it to him, with a mug of beer. He dug in with the spoon, eating quickly. When he was through, he spread out his papers and got to work.

  Love's Labour's Won wasn't going so well as he wished it would. He couldn't lose himself in it, and had no trouble recalling when curfew neared. After he went back to the lodging house, he got a candle of his own from his trunk-Jack Street was already snoring in the bed next to his-lit it at the hearth, and set it on a table. Then he started writing again, and kept at it till he could hold his eyes open no more. He had his story from Boccaccio, but this labor, won or lost, reminded him of the difference between a story and a finished play.

  The next day, he performed again at the Theatre. He almost forgot he had a supper engagement that evening, and had to grab his best spoon-silver-and rush from his lodging house. To his relief, Christopher Marlowe and his mysterious friend hadn't got there yet. Shakespeare ordered a mug of beer and waited for them.

  They came in perhaps a quarter of an hour later. The other man was no one Shakespeare had seen before: a skinny little fellow in his forties, with dark blond hair going gray and a lighter beard that didn't cover all his pockmarks. He wore spectacles, but still squinted nearsightedly. Marlowe introduced him as Thomas Phelippes. Shakespeare got up from his stool and bowed. "Your servant, sir."

  "No, yours." Phelippes had a high, thin, fussily precise voice.

  They all shared a roast capon and bread and butter. Phelippes had little small talk. He seemed content to listen to Shakespeare and Marlowe's theatre gossip. After a while, once no one sat close enough to overhear, Shakespeare spoke directly to him: "Kit says you may have somewhat of business for me. Of what sort is't?"

  "Why, the business of England's salvation, of course," Thomas Phelippes told him.

  II

  "Well, Enrique, what does Captain Guzman want to see me about today?" Lope de Vega asked.

  "Ithink it has something to do with your report on If You Like It," Guzman's servant answered. "Just what, though, I cannot tell you. Lo siento mucho." He spread his hands in apology, adding, "Myself, I thought the report very interesting. This Shakespeare is a remarkable man, is he not?"

  "No." Lope spoke with a writer's precision. "As a man, he is anything but remarkable. He drinks beer, he makes foolish jokes, he looks at pretty girls-he has a wife out in the provinces somewhere, and children, but I do not think it troubles him much here in London. Ordinary, as I say. But put a pen in his hand, and all at once it is as though God and half the saints were whispering in his ear. As a playwright, remarkable' is too small a word for him."

  Guzman's door was open. Enrique went in first, to let him know de Vega had arrived. Lope waited in the hallway till Enrique called, "His Excellency will see you now, Lieutenant."

  Lope strode into his superior's office. He and Baltasar Guzman exchanged bows and pleasantries. His report on his latest trip to the Theatre lay on his superior's desk. He saw that Guzman, in the style of King Philip, had written comments in the margins. He gave a small, silent sigh; he enjoyed being edited no more than most writers.

  Presently, the captain nodded to Enrique and said, "You may go now. Shut the door on the way out, por favor."

  "As you say, your Excellency." Guzman's servant sounded reproachful, which, as usual, did him no good. Lope wondered if he would slam the door to show his annoyance, but Enrique had more subtlety than that. He shut it with exaggerated care, so it made no noise at all.

  Captain Guzman noticed that, too. Chuckling, he said, "He's got his nose out of joint again. Because he's clever, he thinks he ought to be important, too."

  "Better a clever servant than a dolt like my Diego, who'd forget his own name if people didn't shout it at him all the time," de Vega said.

  "Oh, no doubt, no doubt, but Enrique will make too much of himself." Tapping the report with his forefinger, GuzmA?n got down to business: "Overall, this is a good piece of work, Lieutenant. Still, I need to remind you again that you visit the Theatre as his Majesty's spy, not as his drama critic."

  "I'm very sorry, your Excellency," Lope lied.

  Guzman laughed again. "A likely story. You're a lucky man, to be able to enjoy yourself so much at your work."

  "I would enjoy myself even more if the benighted English let women take the stage," Lope said.

  "Indeed. It frightens me, Lieutenant, to think how much you might enjoy yourself then." Baltasar GuzmA?n tapped the report again. His fingernails were elegantly manicured. He looked across the desk at de Vega. "I note that you met this Marlowe back in the tiring room after the presentation."

  "Yes, your Excellency." Lope nodded. "He was talking shop with Shakespeare. A good bit of the time, he was telling him how he would have done things differently-and, in his opinion, better. This is, you understand, sir, something playwrights do."

  "No doubt you would know better than I," Guzman said. "But Christopher Marlowe is a dangerous character. He knows too many of the wrong people. Knowing so many rogues makes him likely a rogue himself. I am given to understand the Inquisition has taken se
veral long, hard looks at him. They do not investigate a man merely for their amusement."

  "While I was there, he and Shakespeare spoke of nothing but their craft."

  Guzman ticked off points on his fingers. "First, Lieutenant, you do not know this for a fact. They could have hidden any number of coded meanings in their talk, and you would have been none the wiser.

  Second, who knows what they said after you left the Theatre? They do, and God does, and no one else.

  You do not."

  That he was right made his supercilious manner no less annoying: more so, if anything. Lope protested:

  "Say what you will of Marlowe, but Shakespeare has always stayed with the stage and fought shy of politics."

  But his superior shook his head. "Not necessarily. At the recent auto de fe, one of the men relaxed to the Inquisition for punishment-a notorious sorcerer and counterfeiter-saw Shakespeare in the crowd and called out for him to testify to his good character. This fellow, a certain Kelley, was also an intimate of Christopher Marlowe's. So Shakespeare is not above suspicion. No man is above suspicion," he added, sounding as certain as if he were reciting the Athanasian Creed.

  Though the news shook Lope, he did his best not to show it. He said, "A drowning man will clutch at any straw."

  "True," Captain Guzman agreed. "Or it may be true. But I find it interesting that this Kelley should reckon Shakespeare a straw worth clutching." Without giving de Vega a chance to answer, he rolled up the report, wrote something on the outside, and tied it with a green ribbon. Holding it out, he said, "I want you to take this to Westminster, to an Englishman there who has worked closely with us for a long time.

  He already knows of the business with the sorcerer, and he is well suited to judge just how important this meeting between Shakespeare and Marlowe may be."

  "Very well, your Excellency." Lope took the report. "An Englishman, you say? Am I going to have to translate my work here? I would want a secretary's help with that. I speak English well enough, but I cannot say I write it."