"I'll miss the dons not, an they be truly routed," the old Englishwoman said. "Vile, swaggering coxcombs, the lot of 'em."
"Yes," Lope said again, meaning anything but. The old woman nodded and went on her way. De Vega cocked his poor, battered head to one side, listening. He heard very little: no gunfire, no shouts of, Death to the dons! That had to mean London lay in English hands.
What do I do now? he wondered. He couldn't hire a wherry to take him out of the city, following Isabella and Albert's example. Maybe they'd fled to gather strength elsewhere and try to return. But maybe also-and more likely, he judged-they'd got away just ahead of a baying pack of Englishmen who would have killed them if they'd caught them. The old woman seemed likely to be right about that.
The first thing Lope did was drink again. He was thirsty as could be. He was hungry, too, but food would have to wait. He splashed more water on his head. The cold did a little, at least, to ease his pain.
Staying upright was easier than it had been during the night. Deciding where to go was harder, especially with his head still cloudy. He let his feet take him where they would. They may be the smartest part of me now, he thought.
They carried him in the direction of the barracks from which Spanish soldiers had dominated London for the past ten years. Before long, he stumbled past a pile of bodies like the one from which he'd emerged when he came back to his senses. He shuddered, crossed himself, and went on. No, his countrymen didn't dominate this city any more.
Just around the corner from that dreadful pile, he almost stumbled over the corpse of a gray-haired Englishman. The fellow had been knocked in the head. He hadn't bled much, and what blood had spilled ran away from his body instead of puddling under it. He wasn't far from Lope's size. A scavenger had already stolen his shoes and his belt pouch, but he still wore doublet and hose.
Lope stripped him-an awkward business, since he'd begun to stiffen-then got out of his own bloody clothes. The dead man's hose were a little too short, but the doublet fit well. Not only was the outfit far cleaner than what de Vega had worn, it also helped make him look more like an Englishman himself.
He wished he had a weapon of some sort, even if only an eating knife. Then he shrugged, which made his battered head hurt. There would be more bodies in the street, of that he was sure. Not all of them would have been thoroughly plundered, not yet.
He soon acquired a dagger a good deal more formidable than an eating knife. A few coins also jingled in his pouch-not so many as he'd had before he was robbed while lying senseless, but a few. The Englishman from whom he took them would never need to worry about money again.
Lope used a couple of pennies to buy a loaf and a cup of ale. The man who sold them to him gave him a hard look. "Your way of speaking's passing strange, friend," he remarked.
Are you a Spaniard? was what he meant. Lope answered, "It wonders me I can speak at all. Some caitiff rogue did rudely yerk me on the knob, wherefrom my wits yet wander."
"Ah." The tavernkeeper relaxed and nodded. "Ay, belike a filchman to the nab'll leave you crank for a spell. Well, give you good day, then."
"E'en so." De Vega drained the ale and walked on, tearing chunks from the loaf as he went. A club to the head could indeed make a man act like an epileptic for a while-as he knew only too well.
Half a block later, he turned up St. Swithin's Lane. As he walked past the London Stone and spied the Spanish barracks, hope suddenly soared in him: soldiers stood guard outside the entrance. But, when he drew nearer, that hope crashed to earth as quickly as it had taken flight. Those big, fair-haired, grinning troopers were Englishmen, not Spaniards. "God bless good Queen Bess!" a passerby called to one of them.
The man nodded. His grin got even wider. "Bless her indeed," he said. "You'll have seen, good sir, we've made a proper start at clearing the rats from their nest here."
With a wave and a grin of his own, the passerby kept on his way. He walked past Lope without recognizing him for what he was, as so many had already done. The English sentries likewise paid no attention to him. When he saw the corpses piled against the northern wall of the barracks, he discovered what the soldier had meant by clearing the rats. Most of the bodies there belonged to servants, for the Spanish soldiers who'd been in the barracks when the uprising broke out had gone off to try to hold the Tower of London-and, as Lope knew, had never got there. Their remains lay farther east.
But there was Pedro, the wounded soldier from the patrol Lope had led back here. And there lay Enrique, his clever head smashed in. He too had come back here at de Vega's orders. And. was that.? Lope took a couple of steps towards the corpses to be sure. He had to fight his right hand down when it started to rise of its own accord-he couldn't cross himself here, not without giving himself away. But that was Diego, poor, fat, lazy Diego, who'd always been too indolent to threaten anyone or anything except his master's temper. The Englishmen hadn't cared. They'd murdered him along with the rest of his countrymen they'd caught.
" Requiescat in pace," Lope murmured. Tears stung his eyes. How anyone could have imagined sleepy Diego needed killing. Well, he would sleep forever now. "God have mercy on his soul." That was a murmur, too, a murmur in English, for safety's sake.
"See you one there who galled you in especial?" an Englishman asked. Lope had to nod. Again, any other response would have betrayed him. Hating himself, he went on. Behind him, the Englishman let out a gloating laugh. He admired the corpses Lope mourned.
Where be your gibes now? your gambols? your songs? your flashes of merriment, that were wont to set the table on a roar? Not one now, to mock your own grinning? quite chapfallen? Unbidden, the words from Shakespeare's Prince of Denmark rose in Lope's mind. He cursed under his breath.
He'd been near here-oh, farther up St. Swithin's Lane, but only a stone's throw-when Enrique, smart as a whip Enrique now dead as Diego, made him realize Shakespeare was a traitor and Cicely Sellis.
When he thought of Cicely Sellis and what she'd done with him, to him, he wished the blow he'd taken had robbed him of even more of his memory. He recalled that all too well. Shame blazed in him, a self-devouring flame.
"But I can still have my vengeance," he whispered. He'd been on his way for vengeance the day before, when London erupted around him. He might even have got it, had he not chosen to bring the chance-met patrol with him. Who would have tried to stop one lone man? No one, most likely. Who would try to stop one lone man today? No one, or so he hoped.
Up St. Swithin's Lane again, then. Right into Lombard Street, as he'd done before. Past the church of St.
Mary Woolnoth. He hadn't been far past it when church bells rang two o' clock and hell broke loose. He wasn't far past it today when they rang the same hour.
Along the street towards him came a long column of dejected men, their hands in the air: captive Spanish soldiers and officers. Their eyes, dark and dismal in long, sad faces, flicked over Lope. He recognized some of them. Some of them, no doubt, recognized him. No one said a word or gave a sign. The laughing, mocking English guards hustling them along took no notice of him.
As the last prisoners in the column tramped past, de Vega turned to look back at them. What would happen to them? He hoped they would be ransomed or exchanged, not killed out of hand. The Spaniards hadn't murdered captives after their victories in 1588. Could he dare hope Elizabeth's ragtag followers would remember?
He wouldn't know, not for a while, maybe not ever. "Step lively, you rump-fed ronyons!" an Englishman called. Few of the captured men would have understood him, but gestures and the occasional buffet steered them down St. Swithin's Lane.