Harry Turtledove: Ruled Britannia

Lope crossed himself, too. "Surely his son will prove as illustrious as he has himself."

"Surely," GuzmA?n said, and would not meet his eyes. Philip II was no great captain, no warrior whom men would follow into battle with a song on their lips and in their hearts. But such captains did his bidding. In his more than forty years of gray, competent rule, he had beaten back the Turks in the Mediterranean and brought England and Holland out of heresy and back into the embrace of the Catholic Church. More flamboyant men had accomplished far less.

His son, the prince who would be Philip III, also was not flamboyant. But, from everything Lope de Vega had heard-from everything everyone had heard-he was not particularly competent, either. Lope said, "God will protect us, as He has till now."

Guzman crossed himself again. "May it be so." Now he did look de Vega full in the face. "And, of course, our duty is to help God as best we can. What are your plans for today, Lieutenant? — leaving Englishwomen out of the bargain, I mean."

"There is to be a play this afternoon at the Theatre," Lope replied. "I shall go there and stand among the groundlings, listen to them, see the play, and chat with the actors afterwards if I have the chance."

"A duty you hate, I'm sure," Captain GuzmA?n said. "I do wonder whether your attendance is for the benefit of Queen Isabella and King Albert, God bless them; for the benefit of King Philip, God bless him and keep him; or for the benefit of one Lope FA©lix de Vega Carpio."

"And may God bless me as well," de Vega said. Guzman's nod looked grudging, but it was a nod. Lope went on, "When I stand among the ordinary English, I hear their grumbles. And when I mingle with the actors, I may hear more. Some of them are more than actors. Some of them have connections with the English nobles who are their patrons. Some of them, now and again, do their patrons' bidding."

"Someof them indeed have connections with their patrons." Guzman gave the word an obscene twist.

But then he sighed. "Still, I can't say you're wrong. Some of them are spies, and so. and so, Lieutenant, I know you are mixing pleasure with your business, but I cannot tell you not to do it. I want a full report, in writing, when you get back."

"Just as you say, your Excellency, so shall it be," Lope promised, doing his best to hide his relief. He turned to leave.

Baltasar Guzman let him take one step toward the door, then raised a finger and stopped him in his tracks. "Oh-one other thing, de Vega."

"Your Excellency?"

"I want a report that deals with matters political. Literary criticism has its place. I do not argue with that.

Its place, however, is not here. Understand me?"

"Yes, your Excellency." You're a Philistine, your Excellency. It's God's own miracle you can read and write at all, your Excellency. But GuzmA?n was the man with the rank. Guzman was the man with the family.

Guzman was also the man with the literate, intelligent, curious servant. As de Vega left the office, Enrique said, "Sir, your English is much better than mine. I would be glad to hear what these playwrights are doing, to compare them to our own."

Keeping Enrique sweet might help keep Captain Guzman sweet. And Lope was passionate about the theatre. He wished his useless Diego were passionate about anything but slumber. "Of course, Enrique. When I get back."

The Theatre stood in Shoreditch, beyond the walls of London and, in fact, beyond the jurisdiction of the city. Before the Catholic restoration, the grim Protestants who called themselves Puritans had kept theatres out of London proper. Many of the same men still governed the capital of England. They had made a peace of sorts with the Church, but not with gaiety; there still were no theatres within the bounds of the city.

Lope's cloak and hat shielded him from the endless autumn drizzle as he made his way out through Bishopsgate and up Shoreditch High Street. Leaving the wall behind didn't mean leaving behind what still seemed like a city, even if it was no longer exactly London. Stinking tenements lined narrow streets and leaned toward one another above them. Here a man might be murdered without even the excuse of sleeping with another man's wife. Lope kept a hand on the hilt of his rapier and strode on with a determination that warned all and sundry he would be hard to bring down. Instead of troubling him, people scrambled

out of his way. Better to be bold, he thought.

Stews flourished beyond the reach of the London city government, too. A skinny, dirty bare-breasted woman leaned out a window and called to de Vega: "How about it, handsome?"

What went through his mind was, God grant I never grow so desperate. He swept off his hat, bowed, and kept walking. "Cheap bugger!" she shouted after him. "Marican! " Did she know him for a Spaniard, or was that just another insult, one new here since the coming of the Armada? He never found out.

Buildings ended. Fields, orchards, and garden plots began. Plenty of people were making their way toward the Theatre. Lope tremendously admired it and the other theatres on the outskirts of London. No such places in which to put on plays existed in Spain. There, actors performed in a square in front of a tavern, with the audience looking down from the buildings on the other three sides of that square. Real playhouses. Did the Englishmen know how lucky they were? He doubted it. From all he'd seen, they seldom did.

Though brightened with paint, the Theatre's timbers were themselves old and faded; the three-story polygonal building had been standing for more than twenty years. Gay banners on the roof helped draw a crowd. So did a big, colorful signboard above the entrance, advertising the day's show:

IF YOU LIKE IT, A NEW COMEDY BY WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. Dissolute-looking men were making pennies for drink by going-staggering-through the streets bawling out the name of the play.

Lope paid his penny at the door. "Groundling!" called the man who took the coin. Another man directed de Vega to the standing room around the brightly painted stage, where he jostled his way forward. Had he paid tuppence or threepence, he could have had a seat in one of the galleries looking down on the action. Here among the poorer folk, though, he would likely find more of interest.

Hawkers fought through the press, selling sausages and pasties and cider and beer. Lope bought a sausage and a cup of cider. He stood there chewing and sipping, guarding his place with his elbows as he listened to the men and women around him.

"Nasty way to die, burning," a white-bearded fellow remarked.

"You ever see anybody braver nor Parsons Stubbes the other day?" a woman said. "Couldn't be nobody braver. God's bound to love a man like that-only stands to reason. I expect he's up in heaven right now."

"How about them what burned him?" another man asked.

"Oh, I don't know anything about that," the woman answered quickly. She'd already said too much, and realized it, but she wouldn't say any more. Nine years of the Inquisition had taught these talkative people something, at least, of holding their tongues. And before that they'd had a generation of stern heresy under Elizabeth, and before that Catholicism under Mary and Philip, and before that more heresy under Henry VIII. They'd swung back and forth so many times, it was a marvel they hadn't looked toward the Turks and had a go at being Mahometans for a while.

Then such thoughts left him, for two actors appeared on stage, and the play began. Lope had to give all his attention to it. His English was good, but not so good that he could follow the language when quickly spoken without listening hard. And Shakespeare, as was his habit, had cooked up a more complicated plot than any Spanish playwright would have thought of using: squabbling noble brothers, the younger having usurped the elder's place as duke; the quarreling sons of a knight loyal to the exiled rightful duke, and the daughters of the rightful duke and his brother.