He wondered how much more he would have to say. But Shakespeare, after c.o.c.king his head to one side, got to the nub of it in two words: "A woman?"

"Yes, a woman," Lope answered in some relief. "She hath made promises, made them and then kept them not. And yet she may. This being so, I am torn 'twixt hope and fury."

He hadn't thought Catalina Iba?ez would play him for a fool. He hadn't thought she could play him for a fool. But Don Alejandro's mistress had been all warmth and seductiveness when she didn't have to deliver, and had either kept from seeing him alone or been frustratingly cool when she did. It drove Lopemad: too mad to realize it might have been intended to do just that.

Will Kemp laughed. The clown pitched his voice high, as Shakespeare had: "If thou thinkest I am too quickly won, I'll frown and be perverse and say thee nay. So thou wilt woo." He let it drop back to its usual register: "Sits the wind so?"

He'd summed it up more neatly than de Vega had on his own. "Yes, just so," Lope answered. "What am I to do?"

"You are to have your lines as Master Idi?quez by heart, even an she be heartless," Shakespeare told him. "Let not your honor as a man touch your honor as a player, or no player shall you be."

"I understand," Lope said contritely. "You have reason, se?or . My private woe should not unsettle this your play."

"As for the wench, a boot in the b.u.m may haply work wonders, as hath been known aforetimes," Kemp said. "And if you cannot cure her by the foot, belike you'll do't by the yard."

He leered. Shakespeare snorted. So did the rest of the Englishmen in earshot. Lope scratched his head.

He spoke English well, but every so often something flew past him. He had the feeling this was one of those times.

"I do know my lines," he said, ignoring what he couldn't follow. "Hear me, if you will:

'This cardinal, Though from an humble stock, undoubtedly Was fashioned to much honour. From his cradle He was a scholar, and a ripe and good one: Exceeding wise, fair-spoken, and persuading; Lofty and sour to them that lov'd him not, But to those men that sought him sweet as summer.

And, to add greater honours to his age Than man could give him, he died fearing G.o.d.' "

"In sooth, you have them," Shakespeare agreed. "It were better, though, to bring them forth when called for."

"And so I shall," Lope promised. "Before G.o.d, I shall."

"Before G.o.d, ay--we are ever before G.o.d," Will Kemp said. "But can you stand and deliver before the groundlings? There's the rub."

He couldn't mean he thought the groundlings a more important and more difficult audience than G.o.d . . .

could he? No one could be that blasphemous. The English Inquisition would get its hooks into a man whodared say anything of the sort--would get them in and never let go again. An ordinary man, fetched before the inquisitors, would have no defense. But a player, Lope realized, just might. He could say he'd put the thought of his craft ahead of his soul for a moment. He probably wouldn't escape scot-free, but might avoid the worst.

"Let us try again," Shakespeare said. "The more we work afore ourselves alone, the better we shall seem when the Theatre's full."

"Or not, an G.o.d will it so," Kemp said. "The best-rehea.r.s.ed company will now and again make a hash of things."

"I have myself seen the same, more often than I should wish," Lope agreed.

"Ay, certes. So have we all," Shakespeare said. "But a company less than well rehea.r.s.ed will make a hash of things more than now and again. Thus I tell you, once more into the breach, dear friends, once more; or close the show up with our bungled lines. Disguise fair nature with hard-summoned art. When the trumpet's blast blows in your ears, then imitate the action of the Spaniard."

"I need not imitate," Lope pointed out.

Shakespeare made a leg at him. "Indeed not, Lieutenant. But as for you others, I'd see you stand like greyhounds in the slips, straining upon the start. Follow your spirit, and upon your cue cry, 'G.o.d for Philip! Sweet Spain and Saint James!' "

Richard Burbage had left the stage, probably for the jakes. Returning, he clapped his hands and said, "By G.o.d, Will, I've gone off to war with words less heartening ringing in my ears."

"Never mind war," Shakespeare said. "Let us instead piece together this King Philip. Take your places.

We shall once more essay the scene."

This time, Lope remembered his lines. He sent them ringing out into the empty Theatre. As he spoke and gestured, he tried to imagine the place full of noisy, excited people, all straining forward to catch his every word--and all ready to pelt him with whatever they had handy if he came up dry, or simply if they didn't care for what he had to say. From everything he'd seen, English audiences had less mercy in them than their Spanish counterparts. When they scented weakness, they went straight for the kill.

Here, though, Shakespeare seemed satisfied. "Enough for now, methinks," he said. "G.o.d grant we have time aplenty for further work herewith. The day's play, however, we must give at two o' the clock. That wherein we should be good betimes needs must yield pride of place to that wherein we must be good anon. Master Lope, gramercy for your work this day."

"The pleasure is mine." De Vega touched a finger to the broad brim of his hat in salute. The phrase was an English translation of a Spanish commonplace, but he meant it. "You--all of you--show me every day I am here what a company of players should be."

" 'Steeth, Master Lope, I take it as an insult that anyone should style me an exemplar," Will Kemp growled. "Do you withdraw it, or will you give satisfaction?"

For a moment, de Vega thought he'd truly been challenged. Then he thought he might draw on the clown, to cure him of such insolence once for all. But, after a pause that couldn't have spanned two heartbeats, he drew himself up as if affronted. "I, give satisfaction, sirrah? Do you take me for a woman?"

The players laughed. Will Kemp's grin showed uneven teeth. "By my troth, no," he answered. "D'you take me for Kit Marlowe?"More laughter arose, the baying laughter of men mocking one another's prowess. "I am wounded," de Vega said, and clapped both hands over his heart.

"Which only shows you know not where Kit'd wound you," Kemp said, and clapped both his hands over his backside. That coa.r.s.e, baying laughter redoubled.

Lope joined it. He'd admired--still did admire--Marlowe the poet. It was as if Marlowe the sodomite were some different creature, divorced from the other. Life would have been simpler were that true. But they both made up different parts of the same man. De Vega wondered, not for the first time, how G.o.d could instill such great gifts and such a great sin into the same flesh and spirit. He sometimes thought G.o.d did such things to keep mortals from believing they understood Him and getting an exaggerated notion of their own cleverness.

Does Marlowe's fall, then, save other men from sins of their own? he wondered. If that be so, does it not make Marlowe like our Lord? Lope shook his head. There was one bit of speculation his confessor would never hear. If it should reach an inquisitor's ears . . . No, Lope didn't want to think about that.

As Lord Westmorland's Men began going through the play they'd put on when the Theatre opened, de Vega walked out, swung up onto his horse, and rode back to London. This time, no one in the crowded tenements outside the wall troubled him: not beyond the usual catcalls and curses from behind his back.

Ignoring those was always easier; trying to track down the folk who loosed them led only to frustration and fury.

At Bishopsgate, the Irish guards also recognized him for a Spaniard. From them, he got respect instead of scorn. Their sergeant, an immense man, made a clumsy leg at him. The common soldiers murmured in what might have been Irish or might have been what they reckoned English. Either way, it was unintelligible to Lope. He tipped his hat and rode on.

Not far inside the gate, he was struck by the spectacle of a handsome woman coming out of an ordinary with a cat perched on her left shoulder as if it were a sailor's bird. He reined in. "Give you good day, my lady," he said, "and why, I pray you, sits the beast there?"

She gave him a measuring look. "Good day to you, sir," she answered. Lope realized then she was a few years older than he; he hadn't noticed at first glance, as he would have with most women. Her smile held a certain challenge. "As for Mommet here--well, porqu? no?"

Of course she would know him for a Spaniard by his dress, his looks, his accent. He laughed. "Why not indeed? What an extraordinary beast, though, to stay where you choose to set it."

The cat--Mommet--sent him a slit-eyed green stare a good deal more dismissive than its mistress'. Its yawn displayed needle teeth and a pink tongue. The woman said, "What cat is not an extraordinary beast? Come to that, what man is not an extraordinary beast?"

Lope blinked. He was in love with Lucy Watkins. He was also in love with Catalina Iba?ez, a love that tormented his soul--among other things--all the more because it remained as yet unconsummated. Even so, a woman who spoke in riddles could not help but intrigue him. Love of the body, yes. Love of the spirit--yes, that, too. But also love of the mind, especially for a man with a leaping, darting mind like Lope's, a love neither of his two present amours returned.

"Who are you?" he asked urgently.

He wondered if she would tell him. A modest woman wouldn't have. But then, a modest woman wouldn'thave spoken to him in the street at all. "I'm called Cicely Sellis," she answered, with no hesitation he noted. "And you, sir, are . . . ?"

With another woman, or with a woman of another sort, he would have given his rank and the rolling grandeur of his full name. To this one, he said only, "I am known as Lope de Vega." He couldn't help bowing in the saddle and adding, "Very much at your service, Mistress Sellis."

Mommet yawned again, as if to say how little his service meant. Cicely Sellis dropped him a token curtsy, careful not to dislodge the cat. "You are Master Shakespeare's friend," she said.

He started to cross himself--it hadn't been a question, but a calm statement of fact. Arresting the gesture, he demanded, "How know you that?"

"No mystery." Amus.e.m.e.nt sparkled in her eyes. "His lodging-house and mine own are the same, and full many a time hath he spoke your name."

"Oh." Lope wanted to ask what Shakespeare had said about him. Regretfully, he decided that wouldn't be a good idea. With a nod, he urged his horse forward. "I hope to see you again, Mistress Sellis."

"May it be so," she said, and English spring truly came home to Lope.

JACK HUNGERFORD SHOWED Shakespeare a row of cheap, rusty helmets somewhat brightened by splashes of silver paint. "With feather plumes, Master Will, they serve pa.s.sing well for Roman casques," the tireman said. "See you how the cheek pieces I've added help give 'em the seeming of antiquity?"

Shakespeare reached out and touched one of those cheek pieces. It was, as he'd expected, nothing but cut tin, hardly thicker than a leaf of paper. That didn't matter. It would look all right to the audience.

What the players wore and what the groundlings saw--or imagined they saw--were two very different things. He knew that. No one who'd ever gone on up on stage could help knowing it. Still . . .

"Can we not make it plainer who these Romans are, whom they personate?" he inquired.

Hungerford frowned. "They are Romans, not so?" He scratched his head.

"Ay, certes, they are Romans." Shakespeare drummed the fingers of his right hand on his hose. The tireman, who dealt in things, cared nothing for symbols. "But bethink you, Master Jack. They are Romans, yes. They are invaders, come to Britain to conquer her, to change for their own her ancient and ancestral usages. In the doing, they have cast down a Queen. . . ." How many examples would he have to string together? How long before Jack Hungerford saw where he aimed? Would the tireman ever see it?

Scratching again, this time at the side of his chin, Hungerford spoke in thoughtful tones: "They fair put you in mind o' the dons, not so?"

"Even so, Master Jack! Even so!" Shakespeare wanted to kiss him. Hungerford had seen where he was going after all. "Can you devise somewhat wherewith they have at once the seeming of Romans and Spaniards both?"

"Well . . . I have me these morions here," Hungerford said doubtfully, pointing to a row of Spanish-style helmets below the "Roman" ones. "Haply I might make shift to give 'em a crest of feathers or horsehair, here along the comb, so. . . ." He ran his finger from the front of a morion to the back to show what hemeant.

"Yes! Most excellent indeed!" Shakespeare exclaimed. "By my troth, Master Jack, the very thing. At times, now, the Roman soldiery will be seen armored. Can this also call to mind the dons' equipage?"

"Oh, yes. Naught simpler there." Now that the tireman had the bit between his teeth, he could run. "A good English back-and-breast is like unto that which the Spaniards wear. An eagle daubed on the breast thereof should show the armor is purposed to stand for a Roman's, an't please you."

"Indeed--it pleases me greatly." Shakespeare nodded. "Now, one thing more. What have we here of queenly regalia?"

"Queenly . . . ?" Even with bit between his teeth, Hungerford didn't change gaits quickly; he needed a moment to shift his thoughts from one path to another. But then he snapped his fingers. "Ah! I follow! For the lad who is to play . . ." He snapped his fingers again, this time in annoyance. "Beshrew me if I recall the name."

"Boudicca," Shakespeare said patiently. How many people these days knew of the Queen of the Iceni, defeated and dead more than fifteen hundred years? Only those who'd fought through the Annals.

Maybe his tragedy would change that. Then again, maybe it would never take the stage. But he had to go on as if he thought it would.

"Boudicca," Hungerford echoed. "A heathen appellation, if ever such there be. Well, what would you in aid of the garb purposed for that part, Master Will?"

"That it resemble a certain other deposed Queen's, as close as may be," Shakespeare answered.

He would not say the name. He didn't know why not. This conversation was already so manifestly treasonous, the name couldn't make it worse. But no one ever said it in today's England without a shiver of fear, without wondering who might be listening. He wondered if any girl child born after the summer of 1588 bore it. He had his doubts. He knew he wouldn't have given it to a little girl, not in an England ruled by Isabella and Albert. Maybe some folk were braver than he. No: certainly some folk were braver than he. But were any that brave, or that reckless?

Again, the tireman needed a heartbeat or two to catch up with him. "A certain other . . . ?" Hungerford said, and then nodded. "Oh. Elizab . . ." He stopped. He would not say all of the name, either. His eyes widened. "I take your drift. Whatsoever we may lack, I can get for barter from other companies. They need not know our veritable intent, only that it is to garb a Queen."

"You may say Queen Mary, an't please you," Shakespeare said. "She hath some small part in King Philip."

"As she had some small part in King Philip his life," said Hungerford, who was old enough to remember when Mary and Philip had briefly shared the English throne. He nodded. "Ay, that will suit well enough, should any presume to make inquiry. Are you fain to have me give him a red wig and powder his face white, as was . . . her custom for some years?"

"However your wit may take you," Shakespeare answered. "The greater the semblance, though, the more likely the play to seize the auditors."

"Then I'll do't," Hungerford said.

"And one thing more, Master Jack," Shakespeare said earnestly. "Come what may, suffer not Lieutenant de Vega to learn aught of what's afoot, else all's ruined.""You need not tell me that," the tireman replied. "D'you take more for a witling? A soft and dull-eyed fool?"

The poet shook his head. "By no means, sir. But the enterprise hath such weight and urgency, I'd liefer warn without need than need without giving warning. 'Swounds, I meant no offense, and cry your pardon for any I gave."

Hungerford smiled. "Rest easy. I am not one to hold anger to his inward self, cherishing the warmth like a man in January new-come to hearth and home. And you speak sooth: 'tis no game we play, unless you'd style thus dicing o'er the fate of kingdoms."

Shakespeare sighed with relief. He still had no guarantee Boudicca would come off well, or that it would do as Sir William Cecil hoped and help rouse England against the Spanish occupiers. He had no guarantee the play would even appear on stage. (That gave rise to a new worry. If Boudicca didn't appear, if King Philip did, how could he reclaim the written parts? Any of those, should a Spaniard see it, would be plenty to get him dragged to Tower Hill, hanged, cut down, drawn, quartered, and burnt. His danger didn't end if Boudicca failed to play. If anything, it got worse.) But if his tragedy of the British Queen did reach the stage, Jack Hungerford would do everything in his power to make it look the way it should. And the tireman took it seriously. He understood the stakes for which they were playing.

Haply I make a better poet than did Kit Marlowe, Shakespeare thought. But in all else he were better suited than I, being an intriguer and intelligencer born. "O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pa.s.s from me."

He didn't realize he'd said that aloud till Hungerford completed the quotation for him: "Nevertheless, not as I will, but as Thou wilt."

Was this G.o.d's will? Shakespeare checked himself. That was the wrong question. Everything, surely, was G.o.d's will. But was it G.o.d's will that the uprising should go forward and succeed?

How can I know? Shakespeare sighed again, on a very different note. Almost groaning, he said, "O G.o.d! That one might read the book of fate and see the revolution of the times."

"What fates impose, that men must needs abide," Hungerford said.

Shakespeare's nod was half glum, half exalted. "We have thrown our gloves to death himself, that there's no maculation in our hearts. If it be otherwise, if the canker of treason dwell in someone's bosom, we are all undone."

"Hanging and wiving go by destiny," the tireman said, a homely saw that would have made Shakespeare happier had his own marriage been better.

He left the tiring room and went out on stage, where rehearsal for Boudicca went on. Burbage, as Boudicca's brother-in-law Caratach, traded barbs with Will Kemp, who played Marcus, a Roman soldier now captured by the Iceni, and with Peter Baker, the boy playing Caratach's nephew, Hengo.

"Fill 'em more wine; give 'em full bowls.-- Which of you all now, in recompense of this good, Dare but give me a sound knock in the battle?"

Burbage boomed the words: Caratach was a fierce, bl.u.s.tering soldier.

"Delicate captain, To do thee a sufficient recompense, I'll knock thy brains out,"

Kemp replied. Marcus' talk was far bolder than his performance. He mimed gobbling down food in front of him.

"By the G.o.ds, uncle, If his valour lie in's teeth, he's the most valiant," the boy playing Hengo jeered. He shook his fist at Will Kemp.

"Thou dar'st as well be d.a.m.n'd: thou knock his brains out, Thou skin of man!--Uncle, I will not hear this."