He stared at her, open-mouthed. It wasn't for her looks, though she was fair enough, and would have been lovely at eighteen. But he had never known a woman who used words as a bravo used a rapier--and was as deadly with them as any bravo ever born. "Before G.o.d," he breathed, hardly knowing he spoke aloud, "I must know thee better."

"And will you turn your back on Mistress Iba?ez, cleaving only to me?" she asked.

With any other woman, he would have babbled promises, knowing they were lies. With Cicely Sellis, that seemed less than wise. What would she do if she caught him out? What could she do? Do you really want to find out? Lope asked himself, and knew he didn't. He sighed and shook his head. "Nay, I doubt I shall," he answered. His smile was crooked. "I thank G.o.d I am as honest as any man living that is a young man, and no honester than I."

The cunning woman smiled, too. "Every man hath his fault, and honesty is yours?" she suggested.

Yes, she had a dangerous tongue. And if it was dangerous in one sense, what might it do in another?

Lope made himself stop his lewd imaginings while he tried to figure out how to reply to that. At last, he said, "Doubt truth to be a liar, but never doubt I love."

"What? Me?" Now Cicely Sellis paused. After a moment, she wagged a finger at him. "Nay, you said that not. You are clever, sir--haply, too clever by half."

"I could love thee. I would love thee," de Vega said.

"But not me alone," she said. It wasn't a question. She waited to see if Lope would deny it. When he didn't, she smiled once more and shook her head. "I'd not give all of my love for the part of another's--would not nor will not. Gladly would I be your friend, and as gladly be no more."

"Shall I beg thee?" Lope made as if to go to one knee in the muddy street. Laughing, Cicely Sellis gestured that he should stay on his feet. "Shall I serenade thee?" He strummed an imaginary lute and began to sing in Spanish.

"Give over!" she said with another laugh. "Shall the tiger change his stripes? I think not. Were I myself a different jade, I'd say, come, woo me, woo me, for I am in a holiday humor, and like enough to consent.

But, being all of mine own, I'll not be but part of someone else's liking."

She sounded annoyingly like Lucy Watkins. "I am your friend, then," Lope said, knowing he'd get no more this day. "Those you make friends, and give your heart to, keep their friendship under their own life's key."

"Betimes," the cunning woman said. "Betimes, but not so oft as we'd fain have't." She offered up what at first sounded like a prayer:

"Grant I may never prove so fond, To trust man on his oath or bond;Or a keeper with my freedom, Or my friends, if I should need 'em. Amen."

"Aii!" he said, wincing. Few men saw the world so sardonically, and even fewer women.

"I must away." Cicely Sellis scooped up her cat--Mommet, that was the beast's name--and set it on her shoulder, where it had perched when Lope first met her. As she started up Bishopsgate--towards the gate itself, the direction opposite to his--she added, "G.o.d give you good . . . friends."

"And you, lady," he called after her. "And you." He wanted to turn around and follow her. Only the certainty that that, right now, would cost him even her tenuous friendship kept him walking on into London, his feet dragging reluctantly through the dirt at every step.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE WATCHED from the side of the stage as Lieutenant de Vega, as Juan de Idi?quez, declaimed what amounted to his epitaph for Philip II:

" 'Fair Spain ne'er had a king until his time.

Virtue he had, deserving to command: His brandish'd sword did blind men with his beams; His arms spread wider than a dragon's wings; His sparkling eyes, replete with wrathful fire, More dazzled and drove back his enemies Than mid-day sun bent against their faces.

What should I say? his deeds exceed all speech: He ne'er lift up his hand but conquered.' "

To Shakespeare's astonishment, the Spaniard, after delivering his lines, covered his face with his hands and wept. "Here, what's toward?" Shakespeare called, hurrying towards him.

Lope de Vega looked up at him, tears streaming unashamed from his eyes. "The beauty of your words hath pierced me to the heart," he answered. "Their beauty, ay, and their truth. For truly great Philip dies, and much dies with him. Spain shall be fatherless henceforth."

"Truly, Spain shall be fatherless henceforth," Shakespeare murmured, turning the line to the iambic pentameter of blank verse. He said it over again, then nodded. "Gramercy, Lieutenant. I shall append that to the end of your speech." He made a leg at Lope. "And I congratulate you: your first line in English."

Actually, de Vega had made only four feet of the line, but Shakespeare wasn't inclined to quibble there.

Several of the players clapped their hands. Lope grinned and bowed. But Matthew Quinn, who played aRoman soldier named Decius in Boudicca, told Shakespeare, "Think an hour more; then, if your confidence grow strong on you, you'll leave it in place."

Sudden silence slammed down inside the Theatre. Shakespeare hoped his own jaw didn't drop too far.

The first line and a half were taken straight from the hired man's part, while the last five words were the sort of half-line of blank verse any player could make up in his sleep.

Blank verse sounded like natural speech. Sounding like natural speech was its reason for being. Lope didn't, wouldn't, couldn't know the words came from Boudicca. But everyone else did, and the Spaniard did notice the dismay on the stage. "Is somewhat amiss?" he asked.

"No, naught." Shakespeare hoped he sounded convincing. "Merely a dumb-show: ay, an a.s.s-head; a stuffed man; a very dull fool--in sooth, a most imperceiverant thing."

"I do not follow," Lope said.

Quinn did, entirely too well. "You breeder of dire events!" he shouted, his fat face purpling. "You sneaking fellow! You still and dumb-discoursive devil that tempts most cunningly!" He didn't quite come out and scream that Shakespeare was a traitor, but he didn't miss by much, either.

"Long-tongued babbling gossip!" Shakespeare retorted. "d.a.m.nable box of envy!"

"Enough!" Richard Burbage cried. "Hold! Give over, you rabble of vile confederates, or answer to me."

He folded one hand into a ma.s.sive fist.

Shakespeare fell silent. He'd already said too much. So had Quinn--much too much. And so, for that matter, had Burbage. The hired man, periwig slightly askew, looked ready to say much more. But Burbage advanced on him, that fist drawn back and ready to fly. Quinn thought better of it.

Lope laughed. "You are a band of brothers, and fight like it," he said.

"E'en so." Shakespeare laughed, too, he hoped convincingly. "And now, meseems, we should ready ourselves for the day's play. We shall resume King Philip on the morrow, or the day after."

"Be it so, then." Lope's voice held regret. "Would we might work more now, but I understand you must set the play at hand before the play to come." He touched the brim of his hat. "This day's rehearsal done, I must away, having other duties. Give you good morrow, gentles." He hurried out of the Theatre.

As soon as he was gone, Shakespeare and Matt Quinn started screaming at each other again. "Hold!"

Burbage shouted again. He pointed at the hired man. "You, sirrah, played the sparrow astrut afore the cat. That he doth not pounce means not that he may not pounce." His finger swung towards Shakespeare. "And you, sirrah, strook too hard, putting us in danger worse than any sprung of Master Quinn's folly. Had the Spaniard commenced to dig . . . But he did not, and all's well. We go forward, then, with such caution as we may find."

"Your pardon, I pray you," Shakespeare said. He turned to Matthew Quinn. More reluctantly, he also said, "Your pardon, I pray," to the hired player.

"Let it go," Quinn answered. "When we play is time enough for these lines you have writ me."

"Ay. Fire 'em too soon, and they fail of their purpose." Shakespeare wondered why Decius' part excited the other man: it was neither large nor important. But then, Matt Quinn had never enjoyed much luck in the theatre. Despite more than a little talent, he'd managed to offend someone or to take sick at just the wrong moment four or five different times, killing whatever chance he might have had of becomingsomething more than a man who could do small roles well enough but would never get a big one. Maybe he was glad of any part he could claim.

And maybe, too, he was nothing but a loudmouthed fool. Shakespeare had known plenty of those in his years in the theatre. He did wish Lord Westmorland's Men hadn't been burdened with this one at this vital moment. Had he dared, he would have asked Burbage to sack Quinn. Glancing over towards the hired man, he shook his head. No, he didn't dare. Quinn knew too much--knew much too much. If he were sacked, if he were disgruntled, wouldn't he go straight to the Spaniards and sing his song?

Shakespeare found it all too likely.

The afternoon's play was Shakespeare's If You Like It, which the company had performed many times before. In fact, Shakespeare remembered, they'd put it on the day Marlowe had first dragged him into this conspiracy. Having done it so often, the players didn't need a lot of rehearsal to be fresh.

Shakespeare went back to his lodging as soon as he could after it was over.

When he returned to the Theatre the next morning, players and stagehands stood in little knots with their heads together. "Here, what now?" Shakespeare called; that was no sight he cared to see.

Edward, the tireman's helper, said, "Matt Quinn was dyeing scarlet at the Bull Inn yesternight, and he--"

"At the Bull Inn?" Shakespeare interrupted. "In Bishopsgate? Not far from mine own lodgings?"

"The same," Edward said. "And in's cups he did go on more than considerable from Boudicca, ay, and about the same. Will Kemp heard him, every word, as did all too many not initiate in our mystery."

"If men were to be saved by merit, what hole in h.e.l.l were hot enough for Quinn?" Shakespeare cried, clapping a hand to his forehead. "Truly he is d.a.m.ned, like an ill-roasted egg, all on one side." He started to say more, and more fiery, still, but checked himself. "Where's Kemp? I'd have this from's own lips."

He looked around. "Come to that, where's the drunken roarer himself? I'd have the tale of's folly from his own lips."

"Master Kemp's in the tiring room," Edward replied. "As for Master Quinn, he hath not deigned to spread himself upon our stage this day."

"Is he drunk asleep?" Shakespeare cried. "Or in the bought, illicit pleasure of his bed? At game a-swearing, or about some act that hath no relish of salvation in it? Then trip him, that his heels may kick at heaven, and that his soul may be d.a.m.ned and black as h.e.l.l, whereto it goes."

Edward spread his hands. "I know not, Master Shakespeare. I know only, he is not here. As to the why of't . . ." He shook his head.

"If he repent of his drunken antic and, thinking to save himself from the fruit thereof, if he flee to the dons . . ." Shakespeare's voice trailed away, as Edward's had a moment before.

Richard Burbage came out of the tiring room just in time to hear that. "Marry, G.o.d prevent it!" he exclaimed. "But now I will sack that wh.o.r.eson knave, Will. Speak not against it. Speak not of caution.

My mind's made up." Having played many kings, he could sound like one at need.

"I'll say not a word," Shakespeare answered. "Meseems, though, amongst our other cares that's small beer."

"Who'll take his role, an he come not?" Edward asked.

Burbage stabbed out a finger at the muscular young man. "Will you essay it? He hath but a handful oflines, nor need you no dancing shoes with nimble soles."

Edward gaped. Then an enormous grin stretched across his face. "I'll do't, sir! Learn me those lines, and I'll have 'em by heart quick as boiled asparagus. Do you but show me whence I am to go on, and whither to go off, and I'm your man. G.o.d bless you for the chance!"

"What fools these youngsters be!" Will Kemp exclaimed emerging from the tiring room behind Burbage.

His shoulders shook with laughter. He glanced towards Shakespeare. "Were you ever so all afire to make an a.s.s of yourself before the general?"

"I? Hotter than Edward dreams of being," Shakespeare answered. "And now and again an a.s.s I made of me. So do we all."

Matthew Quinn did not come to the Theatre. Edward took his part, and managed . . . well enough.

Thomas Vincent had to hiss some of his lines to him the second time he came on, but he brought them out loud enough and remembered to face the audience so they could be heard. If nervous sweat darkened the armpits of his tunic, well, it was a warm day. Other players were sweating, too.

After the play, everyone made much of the tireman's a.s.sistant. Shakespeare heard Quinn's name come up only once. When it did, someone--he couldn't see who--said, "He is to us a dead man." Heads in the tiring room solemnly went up and down.

From the Theatre, Shakespeare had come down almost to Bishopsgate when a man stepped out of an alley and into his way on Sh.o.r.editch High Street. The fellow was about his own age, a wide-shouldered brunet, clean-shaven, with his hair cropped short, as Puritans had worn theirs before the Inquisition set out to stifle Protestantism of all stripes. His doublet might have been fine when it was new, but it hadn't been new for years. Instead of hose, he wore a sailor's striped trousers.

When he didn't move aside, Shakespeare said, "Yes? You want somewhat of me?" He gathered himself.

If what the stranger wanted was his money, he'd get a fight first.

And then the fellow smiled, and spoke, and suddenly was a stranger no more. "By my troth, Will," he said, "if you know me not, then who will?"

"Kit?" Shakespeare gaped. "But--but--you took ship in Deptford!"

Even Marlowe's smile looked different without the fringe of beard and the long hair that had framed his face. "Ay, I took ship in Deptford--and left the ghastly scow in Margate. Sithence I've changed my seeming and my style: call me Charles Munday, if you please."

"I'll call you an idiot, a fond monster, a mad mooncalf dotard," Shakespeare exclaimed. "You could be safe away, but no! You'll have none of safety! Should any man pierce your shorn locks . . ."

"Where could I live but London?" Marlowe asked. "This place hath life! All other towns are as dead beside it."

"This place hath your death, on the gibbet or worse," Shakespeare said. "Where will you live? How will you eat?"

"Where, I'll keep in my own privity--what you know not, no inquisitor may rip from you," Marlowe said, and Shakespeare was forcibly reminded of his own danger. The other poet went on, "As for how, no man with a quick pen need--quite--fear starving, and that I have. How fares Boudicca?"

Even in mortal danger, Marlowe would speak of things better left unthought, let alone unsaid. "I knowthat name not," Shakespeare answered stonily. "Till the day, I know it not. E'en after the day, haply shall I know it not."

"You may be wise," said Marlowe--who, Shakespeare realized, hadn't changed his initials with his name.

"Or, like as not, you may be but a different sort of fool, showing forth a different sort of folly."

Thinking of all the rehearsals for Boudicca he'd watched, Shakespeare could only nod.

LOPE DE VEGA fought to keep his face from showing how bored and how annoyed he was. How many times had Captain Baltasar Guzm?n summoned him to his office, only to wave a sheet of paper in his face and then not let him see what it was?

But, though Guzm?n waved this sheet of paper like any other, he startled Lope by handing it to him and saying, "Here. This may possibly be of some interest to you, Senior Lieutenant."

"Ah?" Lope rapidly read through it. His eyes got wider and wider with each succeeding line. He didn't realize how far his jaw had fallen till he needed to speak again and had to pull it up again. "But this . . .

this, your Excellency . . . this is from a printer. A printer in Madrid. In . . . in the capital." Realizing he was babbling, he fell silent again.

Captain Guzm?n nodded. "Yes, a printer," he said. "I told you that, if El mejor mozo de Espa?a succeeded, I would send it and La dama boba back to Spain, to put them before the civilized world. El mejor mozo de Espa?a won praise from no less than the daughter of his Most Catholic Majesty. I keep my promises."

"This says . . ." De Vega made himself stop starting and stopping every few words. "This says the printer likes the plays--he admires them, he says--and that he would be delighted and honored to put them into print. Delighted and honored! G.o.d and the holy Virgin and all the saints bless you, your Excellency! I am going to be in print! In print, at last! I shall be remembered forever!"

So many plays died with their creators. Once he was there no more, who cared about, who remembered, the children of his imagination? They died with him. As worms ate him, oblivion swallowed him. But to leave behind work in print . . . A hundred years from this moment, or two hundred, or four hundred, someone could take a book of his plays off the shelf, leaf through it, and decide to put on La dama boba. And when the lady nitwit went up on stage, Lope would live again.

With a sardonic smile, Captain Guzm?n returned him to the present: "While you are here and merely mortal, Senior Lieutenant, do you recall any mention of Sir William Cecil at the Theatre?"

"Of Lord Burghley? No, your Excellency," Lope answered. "I don't remember ever hearing his name there, though I have heard he's dying."