"Tie up your whelp," Kemp told Burbage, exactly as if he were a proud Roman in barbarous hands.

Peter Baker capered about in a well-acted transport of fury.

"Thou kill my uncle! Would I Had but a sword for thy sake, thou dried dog!"

"What a mettle this little vermin carries," Will Kemp muttered.

"Kill mine uncle!" the boy screeched.

"He shall not, child," said Burbage, as Caratach.

"He cannot; he's a rogue, An only eating rogue: kill my sweet uncle!

Oh, that I were a man!"

Peter Baker cried.Will Kemp smirked.

"By this wine, which I Will drink to Captain Junius, who loves The Queen's most excellent Majesty's little daughter Most sweetly and most fearfully, I will do it."

"Uncle, I'll kill him with a great pin," the youngster playing Hengo squeaked.

"No more, boy," Richard Burbage began. Before he could go on and drink to Kemp's Marcus in turn, the tireman's helper started whistling the bawdy tune of which he was so fond. Instantly, Peter Baker ran off the stage. Burbage went from fierce Caratach to majestic Philip by leaning forward a little, letting his belly droop down, and dropping his voice half an octave. Will Kemp was as quick to turn, chameleonlike, into a cardinal hounding the Mahometans of southern Spain: the drunken, lecherous Roman he had been was forgotten in the wink of an eye.

By the time Lope de Vega walked into the Theatre, what had been a rehearsal for Boudicca had metamorphosed into a rehearsal for King Philip. "Good morrow, gentles," the Spaniard called as he walked towards the stage. He waved to Shakespeare. "Give you good morrow, Master Will. You go on without me, is it not so?"

"A good day to you, Lieutenant," Shakespeare answered. "All of us must take our parts."

"That is so." Lope nodded. "Tell me something, an't please you."

"If I do know it, you shall know it," Shakespeare said. It sounded like a promise. But it was one he had no intention of keeping if de Vega wanted to know anything he shouldn't.

All Lope said, though, was, "Whensoever I come hither of late, some fellow in yon topmost gallery whistles the selfsame song. What is't? The music thereof quite likes me. Be there accompanying words?"

Shakespeare coughed. Richard Burbage kicked at the boards of the stage. Will Kemp guffawed. Still, Shakespeare could answer safely, so he did: "An I mind me aright, the ditty's named 'A Man's Yard.' "

"Not a tailor's yard, nor a clothier's yard," Burbage added, perhaps helpfully. "Any man's yard."

"Ah?" Lope looked unenlightened. "Can you sing somewhat of't for me?"

That made Shakespeare cough again, cough and hesitate. Very little made Will Kemp hesitate. He sang out in a ringing baritone:

" 'Rede me a riddle--what is this You hold in your hand when you p.i.s.s?

It is a kind of pleasing sting,A p.r.i.c.king and a pleasant thing.

It is a stiff short fleshly pole, That fits to stop a maiden's hole; It is Venus' wanton staying wand That ne'er had feet, and yet can stand.' "

He would have gone on, but Lope, grinning, held up a hand. "Basta," he said. "Enough; that sufficeth me.

And now, por Dios, I take your j.a.pe of a few days past. We have such songs also in Spanish." He too began to sing. Shakespeare followed a little of it; he knew Italian and French, which were cousins to Spanish, and had picked up some of the conquerors' tongue itself during their ten years in England. From what he got of it, it was indeed of the same sort as "A Man's Yard."

He held up his hand in turn. "This sport were better suited to the alehouse than the Theatre. What would you here, Lieutenant de Vega?"

"What would I?" Lope said "Why, only to see how you fare, my friend, and how your company fares."

He sat at the edge of the stage, his feet dangling down towards the dirt floor where the groundlings would stand come the afternoon. Shakespeare fought back a sigh. He wished the Spaniard had come for some specific reason. In that case, he would settle whatever needed settling and then leave. This way, he might stay all day, which meant no one could work on Boudicca all day.

"Every day that comes comes to decay a day's work in him," Will Kemp said. " 'Tis sweating labor, to bear such idleness so near the heart."

Twitting a Spaniard could be dangerous. The dons were touchy of what they called their honor. What an Englishman would pa.s.s off with a smile might send a Spaniard into a killing rage. Or, equally, it might not.

Lope inclined his head to the clown. "My body shall be idle whilst my wits race. Better thus than contrariwise, meseems."

"Call you me Contrariwise?" Kemp bowed in return. "At your service, sir."

"In sooth, you have ever been contrary to the wise," Burbage murmured.

The clown bowed to him, too. "Et tu, Brute?" he said, p.r.o.nouncing the name of the n.o.blest Roman as if it were the ordinary word brute. Burbage winced.

So did Shakespeare, but he couldn't resist piling quibble on quibble: "Let it not be bruited about that we are aught but contrariwise to idleness."

De Vega's gaze went from one of them to the next in turn. "You give a better show now than when the groundlings spend their pennies."

"I say two things to that," Will Kemp declared. "Imprimis, say I, p.i.s.s on all those who spend their pennies here." Shakespeare and Burbage both groaned. Lope de Vega only looked puzzled again, as he had at the t.i.tle of "A Man's Yard." Before anyone could explain the English phrase to him, Kemp went on, "And secundus, say I, 'tis no wonder we're better now. Come the play, he writes all the lines." He pointed at Shakespeare by thrusting his thumb out between his first two fingers, and added, "I care not a fig for him.""Thou knew'st not what a fig meant, till thy mother taught it thee," Shakespeare retorted, giving back the gesture. "And would thou wert a figment now." Kemp flinched. Burbage clapped his hands. De Vega sat at the edge of the stage, smiling and waiting for the next exchange.

"BY THE VIRGIN and all the saints, my dear, I wish you had been there and understood the English,"

Lope told Catalina Iba?ez. "They might have been fighting with rapiers, save only that their words pierced again and again without slaying, however much they might make a man wish he were dead."

Catalina shrugged. Her low-cut, tight-fitting bodice made a shrug worth watching. "From everything I've seen, actors are always b.i.t.c.hy," she said.

"No." He shook his head. "You make it less than it is. Could I have written this down as it was spoken, and then rendered it into Spanish--"

"It would probably sound petty and foolish," she broke in. "Such things always do, when they're not fresh." She looked at him from under lowered lashes. "Besides, Senior Lieutenant, did you bring me here to babble about mad Englishmen?"

"Certainly not, my beautiful one," Lope answered. "Oh, no. Certainly not." They sat side by side on a taffeta coverlet in the leafy shade of a small grove of willows in the yard by Whitehall, the yard given over to the Kings of Scotland whenever they chose to visit. No visit from King James seemed imminent, however much the Spaniards would have liked to see him fall into their hands. But the English kept up the yard and the buildings inside even so. Lope lifted a bottle. "More wine?"

"Why not?" Catalina answered. As he poured, a bird began to sing. She frowned. "What's that? I don't recognize the song."

"A seed warbler, I think," he answered. The name, necessarily, came out in English. "The bird does not dwell in Spain. I never heard it before I came here, either."

Catalina Iba?ez listened for a little while, then tossed back the wine and shivered. That, for once, had nothing to do with nasty English weather. Summer was here at last. It wasn't a patch on summer in Madrid, but it was tolerable, perhaps a bit better than tolerable. Catalina said, "Even the birds here are foreigners. No wonder I always feel so alone."

"Alone?" Lope set his hand on hers. "Oh, no, sweetheart. How can you say such a thing, when you have . . . Don Alejandro?"

She looked over to him in surprise. She must have expected him to ask, How can you say such a thing, when you have me? Her nod showed a certain admiration, as if he'd made an unusual, thought-provoking move in a game of chess. Since he'd mentioned her keeper, she had to answer. And she did, with a toss of the head that sent her curls flying in pretty disarray. "Don Alejandro doesn't understand me," she said--an old gambit, but always a good one. "He's rich, he's important, but he has no idea what a woman wants."

Lope was neither rich nor important, and doubted he ever would be. As for the other . . . Slowly, he raised Catalina's hand to his lips. "What could a woman want," he murmured, "but to be adored?"

That was an old line, too. It didn't work precisely as he'd hoped. "Don Alejandro is the stingiest man in the world," Catalina went on, "and he doesn't give me presents or take me dancing or even"--she seemed to be reminding herself--"out on nice little picnics like this.""Well," Lope said, "that is a pity." All at once, he began to wonder whether taking her on this nice little picnic had been such a good idea. She was beautiful, yes, undoubtedly, but was she any less mercenary than a scarred German soldier who sold his sword to the highest bidder and walked away if his pay fell in arrears?

Catalina seemed to realize she might have shown a card or two too many. She swayed towards him with melting eyes and said, "I'm so glad to go out anywhere at all, so very glad." She leaned closer yet.

To kiss her was the work of a moment. Altogether without thought, Lope did. Had he thought, he might have wondered who was doing what with whom, and for which reasons. But he'd never been in the habit of thinking around women. He'd hardly even imagined the possibility till his chance meeting with the odd Englishwoman with the cat. And so he kissed Catalina Iba?ez, and things went on from there.

She sighed, deep in her throat, and twisted to press herself against him. "Ah, querido," she murmured when their lips parted at last. "You don't know how long I've wanted to do that."

"And I," Lope said. "Oh, yes, by G.o.d, and I." He kissed her again. Her mouth tasted of wine, but sweeter still.

Except for the twittering birds, they were all alone. The willow branches hung down almost to the ground, shielding them from prying eyes. The gra.s.s under the taffeta coverlet was long and soft and resilient.

Catalina slapped Lope's hands away a couple of times as he began to explore her, but it was only for show, and they both knew it. She giggled when he nibbled the side of her smooth white neck. The giggle turned to a soft, almost breathless sigh as he slid down so his tongue could tease a nipple.

She sighed again, not very much later, when he poised himself above her and thrust home, as if with the rapier. Her thighs clasped his flanks. Her arms squeezed him as if she never wanted to let him go. English summer, he discovered, was more than warm enough to work up a pleasant sweat, provided one found the right company.

"Oh, Lope!" Catalina gasped, just before his moment of joy. Then she let out a little mewling cry that oddly made him think of Mommet, Cicely Sellis' cat, even though he'd never heard Mommet make a sound. Her nails, sharp as little daggers, scored his back. He drove deep and spent himself.

Her mouth twisted in regret when he pulled out of her. But she quickly started putting herself to rights. De Vega got dressed, too. He reached out to pat her bare backside as she pulled up her drawers. "Even more than I imagined," he told her.

"Imagined?" She raised a hand to her face, as if to hide a blush, as if to say she couldn't imagine a man hungrily imagining making love to her.

"It was all I could do," he said. "It was. But no more." Had he been a few years younger, he would have laid her down on the taffeta coverlet and taken her again then and there. He sighed for lost youth. There would be other chances, though, and soon. And he would be seeing Lucy Watkins again before long. It wasn't as if he'd fallen out of love with her when he fell in love with Catalina Iba?ez.

And what might that Englishwoman with the cat be like between the sheets? Lope hadn't thought about finding a lover older than himself since he was eighteen. For that one, he thought he would make an exception.

"We had better get you back," he said to Catalina, shaking his mind free of the women he wasn't with.

He gave the woman he was with a quick kiss. "I don't believe I ever enjoyed a picnic more.""I should hope not." She drew herself up with touchy pride. Oh, yes--this one is all ice and fire, Lope thought. Never a dull moment with her around. He put the cork back in the wine bottle. He'd brought along a loaf of bread and a pot of honey, too. Honey and bread remained untouched. He smiled as he bundled them into the coverlet. I tasted better sweets than honey today.

Hand in hand, he and Catalina walked through the ankle-high gra.s.s of the yard no King of Scotland was likely to visit any time soon, towards the gate by which they'd come in. They'd gone about halfway from the willow grove when the gate opened. A tall, broad-shouldered man walked into the yard and strode purposefully towards them.

"Ay, madre de Dios!" Catalina Iba?ez yelped. She dropped Lope's hand as if it were on fire. Under her paint, her face went white as milk. "It's Don Alejandro!"

Lope let the coverlet fall to the gra.s.s. The wine bottle clanked against the honey pot. He hoped they didn't break, but that was the least of his worries right now. His right hand fell to the hilt of his rapier.

He'd worn it as much for sw.a.n.k as on the off chance of trouble. Without it, he'd be a dead man now.

I may be a dead man anyhow. Don Alejandro went from purposeful walk to thudding trot. His rapier leaped free of its sheath. The long, slim, deadly blade glittered in the sun. "De Vega!" the n.o.bleman bellowed. "Ten thousand demons from h.e.l.l, de Vega, what are you doing with my woman?"

Had de Recalde come in a few minutes earlier, he would have seen for himself what Lope was doing. By Catalina's delighted response, the n.o.bleman would have learned something, too. This seemed neither time nor place for that discussion. Lope drew his own sword. But he gave as mild an answer as he could: "Talking about the theatre."

"Liar! Dog! Son of a dog!" Don Alejandro shouted, and roared down on him like an avalanche. Steel clattered from steel. Sparks flew. Catalina screamed. "Shut up, you little puta!" Don Alejandro shouted.

"You're next!"

His first long, abrupt thrust almost pierced Lope's heart; de Vega barely managed to beat the blow aside.

He couldn't counter. Fast as a striking serpent, Don Alejandro thrust for his belly. Only a hasty backwards leap saved him from owning a second navel. And any puncture a couple of inches deep probably meant death, either from bleeding or, more slowly and painfully, from fever.

Don Alejandro de Recalde was a picture fencer, with a style as pure as any Lope had ever seen. He kept his blade in front of his body and poised to strike at every moment, and he was quick and strong.

He might have stepped out of a swordmaster's school and straight into the King of Scotland's yard. For their first few exchanges, Lope wondered how he could possibly come through the fight alive. And then, as he managed a thrust at Don Alejandro's belly and the n.o.bleman beat his blade aside with a perfect parry, he suddenly smiled a most unpleasant smile.

His next thrust wasn't at Don Alejandro's midriff--it was at his face. Catalina's keeper turned that one, too, but not so elegantly, and he jerked his head back in a way no fencing master would have approved.

Lope's smile grew wider and nastier. "Don't do a lot of real righting, you say?" he panted.

"I say nothing to you, de Vega," de Recalde snarled, and bored in again. "Nothing!" Clang! Clang!

Clang! went their swords, as if they were battling it out up on stage.

But swordplay in real fighting was different from what went on with the groundlings cheering down below. It was different from what the fencing masters taught, too. Lope thrust at Don Alejandro's face again. This time, his foe didn't jerk away fast enough. The point pierced his cheek. The n.o.bleman howled in pain. Blood ran down the side of his jaw. Catalina Iba?ez shrieked."They don't show you that in school, do they?" Lope jeered. He knew perfectly well they didn't. n.o.body included blows to the face in fencing exercises. They were too dangerous. Swordmasters who slaughtered their students or scarred them for life weren't likely to get much new business.

Don Alejandro tried to answer him, but blood poured from his lips instead of words. De Recalde was game. He kept on doing his best to skewer Lope. His best was alarmingly good--but not quite good enough.

Lope thrust at his head again, this time pinking his left ear. More blood flew. Don Alejandro shook his head and kept fighting. Both he and Lope ignored Catalina's screams.

Once more, Lope thought. He gave this thrust all the arm extension he had. His point pierced his opponent's right eye, pierced the flimsy bone behind, and penetrated deep into de Recalde's brain. With a grunt that seemed more surprise than pain, Don Alejandro toppled to the gra.s.s like a kicked-over sack of clothes. His rapier fell from fingers that could hold it no more. His feet drummed briefly, then were still.

A sudden stench said his bowels had let go. Catalina screamed one last time. She gulped to a stop, tears streaming down her face.

"Stupid b.a.s.t.a.r.d," Lope said wearily, tugging his sword free and plunging it into the ground to cleanse it.

"You never really tried to kill anyone before, did you? Well, by G.o.d, you won't try again, that's certain sure."

He wished he'd never killed anyone himself. But he'd fought his way to London after the Armada's army came ash.o.r.e; if he hadn't killed a few Englishmen, they would most a.s.suredly have killed him. He wished their souls a kind judgment from G.o.d--as he did now for Don Alejandro de Recalde's--but they were dead and he was alive and that was how he wanted it to be.

He turned to Catalina Iba?ez. "Come on," he told her. "We have to let the authorities know what happened here. You are my witness I slew in self-defense."