" My orders?" Lope shouted back. "Where the devil's Captain Guzman?"
"Down, sir-a thrust through the thigh," the underofficer answered. De Vega grimaced; a wound like that could easily kill. The sergeant went on, "What now, sir? We've got more of these fornicating Englishmen coming up behind us now, and more and more on the rooftops, too. What do we do? What can we do?"
He sounded frightened for the whole Spanish force.
Till then, Lope had been too busy to be frightened for anyone but himself. He called quick curses down on GuzmA?n's head. If the captain hadn't taken them to the Tower the most obvious way. It might not have mattered at all, de Vega thought. He couldn't change routes now. He couldn't split his force, either, not when it was beset from all sides. He saw only one thing he could do.
"Forward!" he said. "We have to go forward. Tell off a rear guard to hold back the Englishmen behind us. Come what may, we must reach the Tower." Captain GuzmA?n had been right about that.
Forward they went, half a bloody step at a time. Every soldier they lost was gone for good. Fresh Englishmen kept flooding into the fight.
Even through the din of his own battle, Lope heard a great racket of gunfire from ahead, from the direction of the Tower of London. He didn't know what it meant, not for certain, but he did know he misliked it mightily. Then an Englishman he never saw clouted him in the side of the head with a polearm-this one, unlike the fellow de Vega had killed, found room to swing his weapon even in the crowd. The world flared red, then black. Lope's rapier flew from his hand. He swayed, shuddered. fell.
Ravens. The great black birds had always roosted on, nested on, the Tower of London. Now, careless of the swarms of live Englishmen flooding into the Tower, the scavengers settled on the sprawled and twisted bodies on the battlements and in the courtyard. Most of the dead were Spaniards, but more than a few Englishmen lay among them. Every once in a while, the birds would flutter up again when someone pushed too close, but never for long. They hadn't enjoyed such a feast in years.
Shakespeare shivered to see the ravens. He'd been sure the carrion birds would peck out his eyes and tongue and other dainties after he was slain. And it might yet happen-he knew that, too. He had no idea how the uprising fared in the rest of London, in Westminster, elsewhere in England. Here by the Tower, though, all went well, so his fears receded for the moment.
"The Bell Tower!" people shouted. "She's in the Bell Tower!" They streamed towards it. No need to ask who she was. Hardly any need even to call out her name, not now. Were it not for her, this throng never would have come to the Tower.
Beside Shakespeare, a graybeard said, "She was in the Bell Tower aforetimes, too. Bloody Mary mewed her up there, forty years gone and more."
Bloody Mary. Amazement prickled through Shakespeare. Who, since the Armada landed, had dared use that name for Elizabeth's half sister? No one the poet had heard, not in all these years. Truly a new wind was blowing. May it rise to a gale, a mighty tempest, he thought.
Soldiers in armor-dented, battered, blood-splashed armor-stood guard at the base of the Bell Tower.
Their spears and swords and arquebuses-and their formidable presence-kept people from rushing up into the Tower to the rooms where Elizabeth had passed the last ten years. Ruddy cheeks, blue eyes, beards of light brown and yellow and fiery red proclaimed them Englishmen. Shakespeare wondered if any Spaniards were left alive here. He hoped not.
"Back! Keep back!" an officer yelled. Half the plume had been hacked off his high helm, but his voice and his swagger radiated authority. The crowd didn't actually move back-impossible, with more folk flooding into the courtyard every minute. But it did stop trying to push for ward. In those circumstances, that was miracle enough. A peephole in the door behind the officer opened. Someone spoke to him through it. He nodded. The peephole closed. The officer shouted again: "Hear ye! Hear ye me! Her Majesty'll bespeak you anon from yon window." He pointed upwards. "But bide in patience, and all will be well."
Her Majesty. Again, Shakespeare felt the world turning, changing, around him. Since 1588, Philip II's daughter Isabella had been Queen of England. Maybe Isabella still thought she was. But this swarm of Englishmen thought otherwise. God grant we be right.
"Elizabeth!" Sir Robert Devereux's voice boomed out, even more full of command, more full of itself, than the officer's. "Elizabeth! Elizabeth! Come forth, Elizabeth!"
At once, the crowd took up the chant: "Elizabeth! Elizabeth! Come forth, Elizabeth!" It echoed from the gray stone walls of the Tower. Shakespeare shouted with the rest. "Elizabeth! Elizabeth! Come forth, Elizabeth!" The rhythm thudded in him, as impossible to escape as his own heartbeat.
The shutters of that window swung open. The chanting stopped.
A sharp-faced, gray-haired woman in a simple wool shift looked out from the window at the suddenly silent throng below. Staring up at her, Shakespeare at first guessed her a serving woman who would in a moment escort Elizabeth forward. When he thought of the Queen of England, he thought of her as she'd been portrayed throughout her reign. To be Elizabeth, she should have worn a magnificent gown. She should have sparkled with jewels. Her face should have been white and smooth despite her years, her hair a red that likewise defied time. A glittering coronet should have topped her head.
But then she said, "I am here. My own dear people of England, you are come at last, and I. am.
still. here." Implacable determination blazed from her every word, even though most of her teeth were black.
"God save the Queen!" Robert Devereux shouted, waving his rapier. Again, the crowd took up the cry.
Elizabeth raised her hand. Once more, silence fell. Into it, she said, "God hath preserved me unto this hour, for the which I shall give praise to Him all the remaining days of my life." Her voice seemed to strengthen from phrase to phrase. Shakespeare wondered how much she'd used it these past ten years.
With whom had she spoken? Who would have dared speak to her?
She went on, "And I assure you, I do not desire to live even one day more to distrust my faithful and living people. Let tyrants and foul usurpers fear. I have always so behaved myself, even in my long time of hardship and sorrow, that, under God, I have placed my chiefest strength and safeguard in the loyal hearts and good will of my subjects. Thus I stand before you at this time, not for my recreation and disport, but being resolved in the midst and heat of this glorious uprising to live or die amongst you all, never being made separate from you again. "
Her voice caught. Tears stung Shakespeare's eyes. What had the imprisoned Queen gone through, here in the Tower, here in the hands of her enemies? "Elizabeth!" the crowd shouted, over and over again.
"Elizabeth! Elizabeth!" Shakespeare joined it, yelling till his throat was raw.
Elizabeth raised her hand once more. "Now we are begun anew," she said. "I shall gladly lay down, for my God and for my kingdom and for my people, my honor and my blood, even in the dust. I know I have the body of a weak and feeble woman, but I have the heart and stomach of a king, and of a king of England too. And I think foul scorn that Spain or any prince of Europe should have dared invade the borders of my realm, or that Isabella and Albert falsely style themselves sovereigns thereof. Rather than any more dishonor shall fall on me, I myself will take up arms-"
This time, the roar of the crowd stopped her: a savage wordless roaring bellow that said she could have led them barehanded against all the hosts of Spain, and they would have torn the dons to pieces for her.