" 'Twas a round Romish oath, but I looked for none other from a Spaniard," the officer said. "I am satisfied indeed, Lieutenant, and declare you free. G.o.d go with you."

Lope bowed. "And with you, for your generous chivalry." He hesitated, then let out an embarra.s.sed chuckle. "I pray your pardon for a grateful man's foolish question, but how am I to get me hence without a ha'penny to my name?--for my purse was slit or ever I was ta'en."

"Did you ask me this, I was told to give you these: two good gold angels, a pound in all." After returning the bow, the Englishman set the coins in Lope's hand. "Sir William saith, G.o.dspeed and and safe journey homeward."

"Sir William?" Lope scratched his head. "I know none of that name and t.i.tle but Lord Burghley, may he rest in peace." He made the sign of the cross.

The English officer started to do the same, then abruptly caught himself and scowled. He forgot he is a Catholic no more, de Vega thought with amus.e.m.e.nt he dared not show. The Englishman said, "Whether you ken him or no, Lieutenant, he doth know you. Which beareth the greater weight?"

"Oh, that he know me, a.s.suredly. And I do thank you for conveying to me his kind gift." For not stealing it, he meant. The English officer had to think someone would check on him.

"You are welcome." The officer pointed north, towards the wharves of Southwark and, across the Thames, London. "There, belike, you'll find a ship to hie you to France or the Netherlands."

A man strode towards the bear-baiting arena: a tall fellow about Lope's own age, with neat chin whiskers and a high forehead made higher by a receding hairline. "There, belike, I'll find a friend." De Vega waved and raised his voice to call, "Will! Thought you to find me within? You're come too late, for they've set me free."

"G.o.d give you good day, Master Lope," Shakespeare answered. "And if you be new-enlarged, He hath given you a good day indeed. Will you dine with me?"

"I would, but I may not, for I am sworn to quit England instanter."

"Who'd grudge your going with a full belly?" Shakespeare said. "To an ordinary first; and thence, the docks."

Lope let himself be persuaded. After the prisoner's rations he'd endured, he couldn't resist the chance fora hearty meal. Half a roast capon, washed down with Rhenish wine, made a new man of him, though Shakespeare had to lend him a knife with which to eat. He stabbed the fowl's gizzard and popped it into his mouth. When he'd swallowed the chewy morsel, he said, "You do me a great kindness: the more so as I would have slain you when last we met."

"That was in another country," Shakespeare said--not quite literally true, as Isabella and Albert had fled the night before, but close enough. The English poet added, "And besides, the witch lives yet."

"A great sorrowful pity she doth live," Lope said.

"None take it amiss you served Spain as best you might," Shakespeare said. "Mistress Sellis did likewise for England."

"Puta," Lope muttered, but let it go.

"At Broken Wharf in London lieth the Oom Karl," Shakespeare remarked. "She takes on board woolen goods, bound for Ostend and sundry other Flanders ports. Might she serve your need?"

"Peradventure she might." De Vega sighed. "A swag-bellied Hollander ship, by her name, with a swag-bellied Hollander captain at the con. I'd liefer not put my faith in such, but"--another sigh--"betimes we do as needs must, not as likes us."

"There you speak sooth, as I well know," Shakespeare said.

"Ah?" Lope said. "Sits the wind so? Which reckon you the play under compulsion, that which holp to free your heretic Queen, or that which would have praised a Catholic King?"

To his surprise, Shakespeare answered, "Both. Nor knew I which would play, nor which be reckoned treason, until the very day."

"Truly?"

"Truly," the English poet said, and Lope could not help believing him.

"That is a marvel, I'll not deny," he said, and rose to his feet. Shakespeare got up, too. "The Oom Karl, said you?" he asked. Shakespeare nodded. Lope had asked only for form's sake. He remembered the name of the ship. It might indeed serve him well. Ostend lay within the Spanish Netherlands. From there, he could easily find a ship bound for Spain and home.

Home! Even the word seemed strange. He'd spent almost a third of his life--and almost all his adult life--here in England. What would Madrid be like after ten years, under a new King? Would anyone there remember him? Would that printer Captain Guzm?n knew have put his plays before the world?

That might help ease his way back into the Spanish community of actors and poets. He dared hope.

"I'm for Broken Wharf, then," he said.

"Good fortune go with you." Shakespeare set a penny on the table between them. "Here: this for the wherryman, to take you o'er the Thames."

"My thanks." Lope scooped up the coin. "You English be generous to your foes, I own. This fine dinner and a penny from you, Master Will, and I have a pound in gold of some English knight to pay my way towards Spain."

"Do you indeed?" Shakespeare murmured. He gave de Vega an odd, almost sour smile. "Belike we thinkus well shut of you."

"Belike you should." Lope came around the table, stood on tiptoe, and kissed Shakespeare on the cheek. "G.o.d guard thee, friend."

"Spoke like a sprightful n.o.ble gentleman," Shakespeare said, and gave back the kiss. "If we do meet again, why, we shall smile; if not, why then this parting was well made."

"Just so." Lope left the ordinary without looking back. When he got to the river, he waved for a boatman.

Waving in reply, the fellow glided up. He touched the brim of his cap. "Whither would you, sir?"

"Broken Wharf, as close by the Oom Karl as you may," de Vega replied.

"Let's see your penny," the wherryman said. Lope gave him the coin--stamped, he saw, with Isabella and Albert's images. Well, they'd fled England before him. The wherryman touched his cap again. His grin showed a couple of missing teeth. "Broken Wharf it shall be, your honor, and right yarely, too."

He did put his back into the stroke, and his heart into the abuse he bawled at other boats on the river. He had to fight the current; Broken Wharf lay some distance upstream from London Bridge, almost to St.

Paul's.

As the wharf neared, Lope pointed to a three-masted carrack tied up there. "The Oom Karl?" he asked.

"Ay, sir, the same." The wherryman's voice suddenly rose to a furious scream: "Give way, thou unlicked bear-whelp!" De Vega, far from the strongest of swimmers, wondered if he could make it to the carrack after what looked like a sure collision. Somehow, though, his man's boat and the other didn't smash together. He decided G.o.d might possibly love him after all. The wherryman took it all in stride. He glided up to the base of the wharf. "We are arrived, sir. Good fortune go with you."

"Gramercy." Lope scrambled out of the boat. He walked up the wharf towards the Oom Karl. A tall man with a bushy blond beard and a gold hoop in one ear stood on deck, calling orders in guttural Dutch to the crew and cursing fluently in English at the longsh.o.r.emen hauling crates and bundles aboard the ship. "G.o.d give you good day," Lope called to him, also in English. "You're bound for Ostend? What's your fare?"

A clay pipe clenched between the tall man's teeth twitched. "S?-, se?or , we're bound for Ostend," he replied in Spanish as quick and confident as his English and Dutch. To catch Lope's accent from so little, he had to have a good ear as well as a clever tongue. "As for the fare--two ducats should do."

Two ducats made ten shillings--that would swallow one of Lope's precious and irreplaceable angels. "I have English money," he said, returning to his own mother tongue. "I'll give you five shillings."

"No," the fellow said, his voice flat and hard. "A Spaniard leaving England's in no place to bargain. You'll pay what I tell you, and thank G.o.d and the Blessed Virgin it isn't more. Yes or no?"

De Vega knew he had no choice. If he stayed here, he'd be fair game, and how the Englishmen would enjoy pulling him down! Once he got to Ostend, he could hope for the charity of his own countrymen there. He nodded and choked out the word he had to say: "Yes."

"Come aboard, then, and give me your money," the blond-bearded man said around his pipe. "We're fully laden, or near enough as makes no difference. We'll weigh anchor and set sail when the tide turns."

"Alles goed, Kapitein Adams," a sailor said as Lope handed the piratical-looking skipper his gold coin.That was close enough to English to let Lope follow it. It also surprised him. "Captain Adams?" he asked.

"You're an Englishman? I took you for Dutch."

"Will Adams, at your service," Adams said in English, and made a leg at him. "Very much at your service, now I have your angel." He flipped the coin up into the air, caught it, and stuck it in his belt pouch. "Will you go below now, or stay on deck until we sail?"

"By your leave, I'd liefer stay," de Vega answered.

"As you wish: so I told you." After that, Captain Adams went back to Dutch. The crew obeyed him as if he were one of their own countrymen. Before long, the last longsh.o.r.eman scurried off the carrack. The sailors stowed the gangplank. Up came the anchors, men straining at the capstans at bow and stern. They brought in the lines that bound the Oom Karl to the wharf. As she began to slide downstream with the current, sails blossomed on her masts.

London Bridge loomed ahead. Will Adams skillfully steered the ship between two piers. Her masts missed sc.r.a.ping against the planking of the bridge by only a couple of feet. Had the Thames run higher, she couldn't have got free.

There beyond the bridge stood the Tower of London. Lope stared at it as the carrack glided past. Then he looked east, towards the North Sea. Soon London--soon all of England--would lie behind him. In spite of everything, he was on his way home.

KATE'S EYES GOT big and round. "A bill of divorcement?" she whispered.

"Ay." Shakespeare nodded. "I begged it of the Queen, and she gave it me." He took her hands in his.

"That being so, art thou fain to wed me?"

"I will. With all my heart I will, dear Will. But . . ." She hesitated, then nodded, as if deciding the question had to be asked. "But what of your . . . your lady wife in Stratford? What of your daughters there?"

"They shall not want, not for nothing. The Queen hath settled on them a hundred and fifty pound."

Shakespeare didn't mention that that was part of what she'd given him. He could wish it were otherwise, but knew better than to complain. Never in all his dreams had he imagined getting so much of what he wanted.

Kate's eyes widened again. "A hundred and fifty pound? Jesu! A princely sum, in sooth. But wherein lieth the justice, they having more than thou when thou hast done so much for Elizabeth and they naught?"

"Fear not, my sweeting, for justice is done: they have not more than I," Shakespeare a.s.sured her, and her eyes went wide once more. He nodded. "By my halidom, Kate, 'tis true."

"Right glad was I to wed thee, taking thee for no richer than any other player who might here chance to sup," Kate said. "An't be otherwise . . . An't be otherwise, why, right glad am I."

"And I," Shakespeare said. He kissed her. The kiss took on a life of its own. They still clung to each other when the door opened and a customer came in.

The man swept off his hat and bowed in their direction as they sprang apart. "Your pardon, I pray ye. I meant not to disturb ye."

"You are welcome, sir," Kate said as the fellow sat down. "What would you have?""Some of what you gave your tall gentleman there'd like me well," he replied, "but belike he hath the whole of't. That failing, what's the threepenny supper this even?"

"Mutton stew."

"Is it indeed? Well, a bit o' mutton's always welcome." The man winked at Shakespeare. Kate squeaked indignantly. Shakespeare took an angry step forward. The customer raised a hand. "Nay, sir; nay, mistress. I meant no harm by it. 'Twas but a jest. For mine own part, I am one that loves an inch of raw mutton, and I am well-provided with three bouncing wenches. I'd not quarrel over a foolish quibble."

Shakespeare didn't want to quarrel, either, but he also didn't want to look like a coward in front of Kate.

He sent her a questioning glance. Only when she nodded did he give the other man a short, stiff bow.

"Let it go, then."

"Many thanks, sir; many thanks. For your kindness, may I stand you to a mug of beer? And your lady as well, certes." The stranger lifted his hat again. "Cedric Hayes, at your service. I am glad you see, sir, that where a man may fight at need, 'tis not that he needs must fight." Hayes plucked a knife from his belt.

With a motion so fast Shakespeare could hardly see it, he flung the blade. It stuck, quivering, in the planking of a window frame. An instant later, another knife thudded home just below it.

" 'Sblood!" Shakespeare said. "Any man who fought with you would soon repent of it, belike for aye."

"Ah, but you knew that not when you chose courtesy." Hayes rose, went over to the knives so he could pull them free, and sheathed them again. " 'Tis a mountebank's trick, I own, but mountebank I am, and so ent.i.tled to't."

"Might you show this art upon the stage, Master Hayes?" Shakespeare asked.

"Gladly would I show it wheresoever I be paid for the showing," the knife-thrower replied. "Who are you, sir, and what would you have me do?"

Shakespeare gave his name. Proudly, Kate corrected him: "Sir William Shakespeare."

"Ah." Cedric Hayes bowed. "Very much at your service, Sir William. I have seen somewhat of your work, and it liked me well. I ask again, what would you have me do?"

"In some of the company's plays--Romeo and Juliet and Prince of Denmark spring first to mind--your art might enliven that which is already writ. An you show yourself trusty, I shall write you larger parts in dramas yet to come."

"I am not like to a trusty squire who did run away," Hayes said. "Where I say I shall be, I shall; what I say I shall do, that likewise."

"Most excellent," Shakespeare said. "Know you the Theatre, beyond Bishopsgate?"

"Certes, sir. Many a time and oft have I stood 'mongst the groundlings to laugh at Will Kemp's fooling or hear d.i.c.k Burbage bombast out a blank verse."

Burbage wouldn't have been happy to hear Kemp named ahead of him. Shakespeare resolved never to mention that. He said, "Go you thither at ten o' the clock tomorrow. I shall be there, and Burbage as well.

We'll put you through your paces, that we may know your different several gaits."

"Gramercy, Master Shakespeare--Sir William, I should say." Hayes raised his mug. "A fortunate meeting.""Your good health," Shakespeare said, and he drank, too.

After Cedric Hayes finished his supper, he left the ordinary. Shakespeare got out pen and ink and paper and set to work. What a relief, to be able to write without having to fear the gallows or worse if the wrong person happened to glance over his shoulder at the wrong moment!

He didn't have to look up anxiously whenever someone new came into the ordinary, either. Being able to concentrate on his work meant he got more done. It also meant he did look up, in surprise, when a man loomed over him. "Oh," he said, setting down his pen and nodding to the newcomer. "Give you good even, Constable."

"G.o.d give you good Eden as well," Walter Strawberry replied gravely. "May you obtain to Paradise."

"My thanks," Shakespeare said. "Why come you hither?"

Before answering, Strawberry grabbed a stool from a nearby table and sat down across from the poet.

"Why, sir? Why, for that I may hold converse with you. But converting's thirsty work, and so"--he raised his voice and waved to Kate--"a cup of wine, and sprackly, too!"

"Anon, sir, anon," she said, and went back to whatever she was doing.

When the wine didn't arrive at once, Constable Strawberry sent Shakespeare an aggrieved look. "

'Anon,' saith she, yet she comes not. Am I then anonymous, that she doth fail to know me?"

Shakespeare scratched his head. Was Strawberry garbling things as usual, or had he made that jest on purpose? Probably not, not by his expression. Shakespeare gave Kate a tiny nod. She rolled her eyes, but brought the constable what he'd asked for.

"I thank you," he said grudgingly. "I'd thank you more had you come sooner."

"There's the difference 'twixt our s.e.xes," Kate agreed, her voice sweet.

"Eh? What mean you?" Strawberry demanded. Kate pretended not to hear him. Shakespeare stared down at the tabletop so the constable wouldn't see his face. Strawberry muttered to himself, then spoke aloud: "I thank G.o.d I am not a woman, to be touched with so many giddy offenses."

"Just so, sir," Shakespeare said. "Why are you come? I asked aforetimes, but you said not."