Ruled Britannia (64 page)

“On to the Tower! To the Tower! To free Elizabeth! To free the Queen!” Those savage shouts grew louder as the crowd from the Theatre—and from the tenements beyond the walls—swarmed into London like a conquering army.
But how much like a conquering army?
Shakespeare wondered, and then wished he hadn't.

They weren't the only swarm loose in the city. More cries and curses rose: some single spies, some in battalions. Madness was loosed here. Maybe Robert Cecil had worked better than even he knew.

“A don! A don!” A new shout went up. So might hunters have cried,
A fox! A fox!
Shakespeare got a glimpse of the Spaniard, saw horrified amazement spread across his face, saw him turn and start to run, and
saw an Englishman tackle him from behind as if in a Shrove Tuesday football match. The Spaniard went down with a wail. He never got up again.

If the Spaniards could have put a line of arquebusiers in front of the rampaging crowd from the Theatre and poured a couple of volleys into it, it would have melted away. Shakespeare was sure of that. A line of armored pikemen might have halted it, too. Even as things were, groundlings and folk from the tenements—some still yelling about freeing Elizabeth—broke away to plunder shops that tempted them.

But no line of ferocious, lean-faced, swarthy Spaniards appeared. Shouts and cries and the harsh snarl of gunfire suggested the dons were busy, desperately busy, elsewhere in London. When chance swept Shakespeare and Richard Burbage together for a moment, the player said, “Belike they'll make a stand at the Tower.”

“Likely so,” Shakespeare agreed unhappily. Those frowning walls had been made to hold back an army, and this . . . thing he was a part of was anything but.

Up Tower Hill, where he'd watched the auto de fe almost a year before. A great roar, a roar full of triumph, rose from the men in front of him as they passed the crest of the hill and swept on towards the Tower Ditch and the walls beyond. And when Shakespeare crested the hill himself, he looked ahead and he roared, too, in joy and amazement and suddenly flaring hope. Will Kemp had been right, right and more than right. All the gates to the Tower of London stood open.

 

A
FTER TENDERLY KISSING
Cicely Sellis goodbye, Lope de Vega stopped in a nearby ordinary for his dinner and a cup of wine with which to celebrate his conquest. The cup of wine became two, then three, and then four: a conquest like that deserved a good deal of celebrating. By the time he started off towards the Spanish barracks, the clock had already struck one. That didn't worry him. As far as he could remember, he had nowhere else he needed to be.

As far as he could remember . . . Others, though, might remember further. He'd just turned into St. Swithin's Lane when a startled shout came from up ahead: “Lieutenant de Vega!
Madre de Dios, señor
, what are you doing here at this hour?”

“Oh, hello, Enrique,” Lope said. “I'm coming back to the barracks, of course. What else should I be doing now?”

He meant it for a joke. But Captain Guzmán's servant stared at him and answered, “What else should you be doing?
Señor
, aren't you going to play, shouldn't you be playing, Don Juan de Idiáquez in Shakespeare's
King Philip
less than half an hour from now? I was going up to the Theatre to see you. By God and all the saints, sir, I never expected to find you here.”

“Don Juan de Idiáquez . . .” Lope gaped. He said the name as if he'd never heard it before in his life. Indeed, for a moment that seemed to be true. But then it was as if a veil were torn from in front of his eyes. Memory, real memory, came flooding back: memory of why he should have been at the Theatre, and memory of why he'd gone to Cicely Sellis' lodging-house—to
Shakespeare's
lodging-house!—in the first place.

He crossed himself, not once but again and again. At the same time, he cursed as foully as he knew how—magnificent, rolling, guttural obscenity that left Enrique's eyes wider than ever and his mouth hanging open. De Vega didn't care. He wanted a bath, though even that might not make him feel clean again. He wondered if anything would ever make him feel clean again.

“That
bruja
, that whore—she bewitched me, Enrique, she bewitched me and she swived me and she sent me on my way like a . . . like a . . . like an I don't know what. And that means, that has to mean—”

“I don't understand,
señor
,” Enrique broke in. “I don't understand any of this.”

“Do you understand treason? Do you understand black, vile, filthy treason? And treason coming soon—soon, by God!—or she never would have . . .” De Vega didn't waste time finishing. He whirled and started back up St. Swithin's Lane.

“Where are you going?” Enrique cried after him.

“First, to kill that
puta
,” Lope snarled. “And then to the Theatre, to do all I can to stop whatever madness they're hatching there.” Even in his rage, he realized he might not—probably would not—be able to manage that by himself. He stabbed out a finger towards Enrique. “As for you, go back to Captain Guzmán. Tell him to send a troop of men up to the Theatre as quick as he can. Tell him it's bad, very bad, as bad as can be.
Run
, damn you!”

Enrique fled as if ten million demons from hell bayed at his heels. Lope started up towards Bishopsgate at a fast, purposeful stride, halfway between a walk and a trot. Black fury filled him. He'd never imagined a woman could use him so. Mercenaries like Catalina Ibañez he
understood. But what Cicely Sellis had done to him was ten, a hundred, a thousand times worse. Not only had she stolen a piece of him, she'd taken her pleasure with him afterwards to waste more of his time and to make sure he didn't get that piece back.

And I wouldn't have, either, if I hadn't run into Enrique
, he thought savagely.
But I am myself again, and she'll pay. Oh, how she'll pay!
His hand closed hungrily on the hilt of his rapier.

He'd just turned onto Lombard Street and passed the church of St. Mary Woolnoth when he spied a Spanish patrol ahead of him. “You men!” he called, and gave them a peremptory wave. “Come with me!”

Their sergeant recognized him. “What do you want with us, Lieutenant de Vega? We have places we need to check, and we're running late.”

Lope set his hands on his hips. “And I have a
bruja
to catch and treason to put down,” he rapped out. “Which carries the greater weight?”

Gulping, the sergeant stiffened to attention. “I am your servant,
señor
!”

“You'd better be. Come on, and my God come with us!”

The bells of St. Mary Woolnoth rang out two o'clock. All across London, dozens, hundreds, of church bells chimed the hour. De Vega cursed. He should have been up at the Theatre. Lord Westmorland's Men should be presenting
King Philip
. Were they? If they weren't, what were they giving instead? He didn't know. He couldn't know. But he could guess, and all his guesses sent ice racing along his spine.

And then, all at once, he had more things to worry about than Lord Westmorland's Men. Someone on a rooftop flung a stone or a brick at the patrol. It clanged off a soldier's morion. The man staggered, but stayed on his feet. “You all right, Ignacio?” the sergeant asked.

“Yes, thanks be to God—I've got a hard head,” the soldier replied. “But where's the cowardly son of a whore who threw that? I'll murder the bastard.”

Before the sergeant could answer, a chamber pot sailed out of a second-story window—not just the stinking contents, but the pot, too. It shattered between two Spaniards, spattering the whole patrol with filth. And then, while they were still cursing that, a pistol banged. With a howl of pain, a soldier slumped to the ground, clutching his leg. Crimson blood streamed out between his fingers.

High and shrill and blazing with excitement, a voice cried out in English: “Death to the dons!”

And, as if that one voice were a burning fuse leading to a keg of powder, a whole great chorus took up the shout. “Death—Death—Death to the dons!” In a heartbeat, the cry echoed up and down the streets of London. “Death—Death—Death to the dons!”

Lope's mind went clear and cold as the ice he'd imagined he felt. Suddenly, the patrol that had seemed so reassuringly strong felt tiny and helpless as a baby. He nodded to the sergeant. “This is it. They are going to rise.” His own voice held eerie certainty.

The sergeant tried to peer up at all the windows overlooking the street. Smoke still eddied in front of one. The shot had come from there, but what odds the pistoleer still lingered? Slim, slim. He didn't order his men after the assassin, as he would have without that daunting cry. Instead, nodding to Lope, he asked, “And what do we do now,
señor
?”

“We win or we die—it's that simple,” de Vega answered. But it wasn't, quite. He looked around, too, as the sergeant had, trying to see every which way at once. Plainly, the patrol would never get to the Theatre, nor even to Bishopsgate. He wished that soldier hadn't been wounded. He couldn't bear to leave the fellow behind, but bringing him along would hamper them. “We'd better get back to the barracks,” he said reluctantly. “We'll have numbers on our side there.”

“Yes, sir.” The sergeant sounded relieved. Now that he had orders, he knew what to do with them. “José, Manuel: bandage Pedro's leg and get him up with his arms over your shoulders.”

Both soldiers knelt to do as he told them, but one said, “We can't do much fighting that way, Sergeant.”

“We'll worry about that later. Quick, now!” To punctuate the underofficer's words, another stone thudded down into the street. It hit no one, but could have smashed a skull if it had. Seeing it, hearing it, made Lope acutely aware he wore a felt hat with a jaunty plume, not a high-combed morion.

Pedro howled again when they hauled him upright. And the sergeant proved cleverer than de Vega had suspected: one of the soldiers supporting the wounded man was lefthanded, so they both had their swords free even with his arms draped over them.

“Let's get moving,” Lope said, and they started back the way they had come.

“Death—Death—Death to the dons!” The cry seemed to come from everywhere at once, from near and far. More stones and more reeking waste flew out of windows. A furious trooper fired his arquebus at one
of their tormentors, but only a mocking laugh rewarded him. And then the patrol had to pause while he reloaded: an empty arquebus was nothing but an awkward club.

Lope hated every heartbeat of delay. How long before the Englishmen nerved themselves to fight in the streets, if they weren't already elsewhere in London? How long before weapons long hoarded in hope came out of hiding? Not long, he feared, and he didn't have enough men at his back.

Half a dozen Englishmen, a couple armed with swords, the rest with bludgeons, came out of St. Mary Woolnoth and formed a ragged line across Lombard Street. “What do we do,
señor
?” the sergeant muttered.

“We fight if we have to, but let me try something first,” Lope answered in a low voice. Then, in English, he shouted, “Stand aside, in the name of the Queen!”

He hissed out a great sigh of relief when they
did
stand aside. One of them doffed his cap and made a clumsy leg at de Vega, saying, “We cry your pardon, sir, but we took ye for a pack of stinking Spaniards.”

“God bless Elizabeth!” another Englishman added.

They all nodded. So did Lope. He led the patrol past them without another word. If he spoke too much, his accent would betray him. And betrayal enough was already loose in London this day. If they dared speak imprisoned Elizabeth's name, if they believed he, leading soldiers, also spoke of Elizabeth and not Isabella . . . If that was so, treason ran far deeper than even de Vega had dreamt.

Behind him, one of the Englishmen said, “Come. Let's to the Tower, and help to set her free.” Their departing footsteps were quick and purposeful. They thought they could do it. Whether they proved right or wrong, their confidence chilled Lope.

“Sergeant!” he said sharply.

“
¿Sí, señor?
”

“Who garrisons the Tower of London? We, or the English?”

“Why, some of each, sir. We both want to make sure Elizabeth the heretic stays there till she dies, eh?” The sergeant hadn't understood any of what Lope or the street ruffians said in English. De Vega's dread only grew. In times like these, how far could any Spaniard trust an Englishman?

As he and the patrol turned down into St. Swithin's Lane, a sharp volley of gunfire came from the south, from the direction of the barracks. He wanted to order a charge. With the wounded soldier slowing everyone else and hampering two healthy men, he couldn't.

Englishmen swarmed up the street towards them. They were fleeing, not fighting. No cries of, “Death to the dons!” burst from their throats. They'd met death, and didn't like him. When one of them spied de Vega and his comrades, he cried, “Here's more o' the foul fiends! We are fordone!” But he and his friends pounded past before Lope and his little force could hope to halt them.