Shakespeare took a deep breath. "King Philip the man is dead, for which all England may thank a God kind and just. By your gracious leave, your Majesty, I'd fain have King Philip live upon the stage."
"What?" Queen Elizabeth's eyebrows came down and together in a fierce frown. He'd startled her, and angered her, too. "This play you writ for the dons, for the invaders and despoilers and occupiers"-she plainly used the word in its half-obscene sense-"of our beloved homeland, praying-I do hope-it would ne'er be given, you'd now see performed? How have you the effrontery to presume this of me?"
Licking his lips, Shakespeare answered, "I ask it for but one reason: that in King Philip lieth some of my best work, the which I'd not have go for naught."
Would she understand? All he had to make his mark on the world were the words he set on paper. He marshaled no armies, no fleets. He issued no decrees. He didn't so much as make gloves, as his father had. Without words, he was nothing, not even wind and air.
Instead of answering directly, Elizabeth turned to Sir Robert. "You have read the play whereof he speaketh?"
Cecil nodded. "I have, your Majesty. Sir Thomas Phelippes, whilst in the employ of Don Diego, made shift to acquaint my father and me therewith."
"And what think you on it?" the Queen inquired.
"Your Majesty, my opinion marches with Sir William's: though Philip be dead, this play deserves to live.
It is most artificial, and full of clever conceits."
The Queen's eyes narrowed in thought. "Philip did spare me where he might have slain," she said musingly, at least half to herself, "e'en if, as may well be, he reckoned the same no great mercy, I being mured up behind Tower walls. And I pledged my faith to you, Sir William, you should have that which your heart desireth, wherefore let it be as you say, and let King Philip be acted without my hindrance-indeed, with my good countenance. 'Tis noble to salute the foe, the same pricking against my honor not but conducing thereto."
"Again, your Majesty, many thanks," Shakespeare said. "By your gracious leave here, you show the world your nobleness of mind."
Judging from her self-satisfied smile, that touched Elizabeth's vanity. "Be there aught else you would have of me?" she asked him.
He nodded. "One thing more, an it please you, also touching somewhat upon King Philip."
"Go on," she said.
"A Spanish officer, a Lieutenant de Vega, was to play Juan de IdiA?quez, the King's secretary. He being now a captive, I'd beg of you his freedom and return to his own land."
"De Vega. Methinks I have heard this name aforetimes." Elizabeth frowned, as if trying to remember where. A tiny shrug suggested she couldn't. "Why seek you this? Is he your particular friend?"
"My particular friend? Nay, I'd say not so, though we liked each the other as well as we might, each being loyal to his own country. But he is a poet and a maker of plays in the Spanish tongue. If poets come not to other poets' aid, who shall? No one, not in all the world."
"De Vega. Lope de Vega." Queen Elizabeth's gaze sharpened. "I have heard the name indeed: a maker of comedies, not so? The guards at the Tower did with much approbation speak of some play of his offered before the usurpers this summer gone by. Following Italian, I could betimes make out their Spanish."
"Your Majesty, I have found the same," Shakespeare said.
"You are certain he is captive and not slain?"
"I am, having ta'en him myself," Shakespeare said.
"Very welclass="underline" let him go back to Spain and make comedies for the dons, provided he first take oath never again to bear arms against England. Absent that oath, captive he shall remain." Elizabeth turned to Robert Cecil. "See you to it, Sir Robert."
"Assuredly, your Majesty," Cecil said. "This de Vega is known to me: not the worst of men." Coming from him, that sounded like high praise. "A kind thought, Sir William, to set him at liberty."
"I thank your honor," Shakespeare said. "It were remiss of me also to say no word for Mistress Sellis, a widow dwelling at my lodging-house. Her quick wit"- amongst other things, the poet thought-"balked Lieutenant de Vega of learning we purposed presenting Boudicca in place of King Philip, and haply of thwarting us in the said enterprise."
"Let her be rewarded therefor," Elizabeth said. She asked Sir Robert Cecil, "Think you ten pound sufficeth?"
"Peradventure twenty were better," he said.
Elizabeth haggled like a housewife buying apples in springtime. "Fifteen," she declared. "Fifteen, and not a farthing more."
Sir Robert sighed. "Fifteen, then. Just as you say, your Majesty, so shall it be."
"Ay, that well befits a Queen." Elizabeth's face and voice hardened. "As who should know more clearly than I, having thrown away-upon my troth, cruelly thrown away! — in harshest confinement ten years of this life I shall have back never again, wherein not in the least respected was one single word from my lips." For a moment, she seemed to imagine herself still in the Tower of London, to have forgotten Robert Cecil and Shakespeare and her guardsmen and the very throne on which she sat. Then she gathered herself. "Be there aught else required for your contentment, Sir William?"
"Your Majesty, an I may not live content by light of your kind favor, I make me but a poor figment of a man," Shakespeare replied.
"A courtesy worthy of a courtier," the Queen said, which might have been praise or might have been something else altogether. "Very well, then. You may go."
"God bless your Majesty." Shakespeare bowed one last time.
"He doth bless me indeed," Elizabeth said. "For long and long I wondered, but. ay, He blesseth me greatly." Shakespeare turned away so he wouldn't see tears in his sovereign's eyes.
Rain pattered down on Lope de Vega. It hadn't snowed yet, for which he thanked God. Next to him, another Spanish soldier coughed and coughed and coughed. Consumption, Lope thought gloomily. He was just glad the black plague hadn't broken out among his miserable countrymen. No snow. No plague. Such were the things for which he had to be grateful these days.
And his headaches came less often. He supposed he should have been grateful for that, too, but he would have been more grateful to have no headaches at all. On the other hand, if he hadn't been thwacked senseless and left for dead, he probably would have died in the savage fighting that had claimed so many Spaniards. He-cautiously-shook his head. Damned if I'll be grateful for almost having my head smashed like a melon dropped on the cobbles.
An Englishman-an officer, by his basket-hilted rapier and plumed hat-strutted into the bear-baiting arena. Lope paid him no special attention. Plenty of Englishmen and — women still came to the arena to look over the Spanish prisoners as if they were the animals that had formerly dwelt here. Lope had seen Catalina IbaA±ez on her Englishman's arm only that once. One more small, very small, thing for which to be grateful.
Then the officer took out a scrap of paper and peered down at it, shielding it from the rain with his left hand. "Lope de Vega!" he bawled. "Where's Lieutenant Lope de Vega? Lope de Vega, stand forth!"
"I am here." De Vega got to his feet. "What would you, sir?"
"Come you with me, and straightaway," the Englishman replied.
"God's good fortune go with you, senor," the consumptive soldier said.
" Gracias," Lope said, and then, louder and in English, "I obey."
The officer led him out of the arena. Only a few feet from where Lope's two mistresses had discovered each other, the fellow said, "You are to be enlarged, Lieutenant, so that you give your holy oath nevermore to bear arms against England and presently to quit her soil. Be it your will to accept the said terms and swear your oath?"