"Before God, sir, you mean this? You seek not to make me your jest?" Lope asked, hardly daring to believe his ears.
"Before God, Lieutenant, no such wicked thing do I," the English officer replied. "The order for your freedom-provided you swear the oath-comes from Sir Robert Cecil, by direction of her Majesty, the Queen. I ask again: will you swear it?"
"Right gladly will I," de Vega said. "By God and the Virgin and all the saints, I vow that, if it be your pleasure to set me at liberty, I shall never again take up arms against this kingdom, and shall remove from it fast as ever I may. Doth it like you well enough, sir, or would you fain have me swear somewhat more?"
" 'Twas a round Romish oath, but I looked for none other from a Spaniard," the officer said. "I am satisfied indeed, Lieutenant, and declare you free. God go with you."
Lope bowed. "And with you, for your generous chivalry." He hesitated, then let out an embarrassed chuckle. "I pray your pardon for a grateful man's foolish question, but how am I to get me hence without a ha'penny to my name? — for my purse was slit or ever I was ta'en."
"Did you ask me this, I was told to give you these: two good gold angels, a pound in all." After returning the bow, the Englishman set the coins in Lope's hand. "Sir William saith, Godspeed and and safe journey homeward."
"Sir William?" Lope scratched his head. "I know none of that name and title but Lord Burghley, may he rest in peace." He made the sign of the cross.
The English officer started to do the same, then abruptly caught himself and scowled. He forgot he is a Catholic no more, de Vega thought with amusement he dared not show. The Englishman said, "Whether you ken him or no, Lieutenant, he doth know you. Which beareth the greater weight?"
"Oh, that he know me, assuredly. And I do thank you for conveying to me his kind gift." For not stealing it, he meant. The English officer had to think someone would check on him.
"You are welcome." The officer pointed north, towards the wharves of Southwark and, across the Thames, London. "There, belike, you'll find a ship to hie you to France or the Netherlands."
A man strode towards the bear-baiting arena: a tall fellow about Lope's own age, with neat chin whiskers and a high forehead made higher by a receding hairline. "There, belike, I'll find a friend." De Vega waved and raised his voice to call, "Will! Thought you to find me within? You're come too late, for they've set me free."
"God give you good day, Master Lope," Shakespeare answered. "And if you be new-enlarged, He hath given you a good day indeed. Will you dine with me?"
"I would, but I may not, for I am sworn to quit England instanter."
"Who'd grudge your going with a full belly?" Shakespeare said. "To an ordinary first; and thence, the docks."
Lope let himself be persuaded. After the prisoner's rations he'd endured, he couldn't resist the chance for a hearty meal. Half a roast capon, washed down with Rhenish wine, made a new man of him, though Shakespeare had to lend him a knife with which to eat. He stabbed the fowl's gizzard and popped it into his mouth. When he'd swallowed the chewy morsel, he said, "You do me a great kindness: the more so as I would have slain you when last we met."
"That was in another country," Shakespeare said-not quite literally true, as Isabella and Albert had fled the night before, but close enough. The English poet added, "And besides, the witch lives yet."
"A great sorrowful pity she doth live," Lope said.
"None take it amiss you served Spain as best you might," Shakespeare said. "Mistress Sellis did likewise for England."
" Puta, " Lope muttered, but let it go.
"At Broken Wharf in London lieth the Oom Karl," Shakespeare remarked. "She takes on board woolen goods, bound for Ostend and sundry other Flanders ports. Might she serve your need?"
"Peradventure she might." De Vega sighed. "A swag-bellied Hollander ship, by her name, with a swag-bellied Hollander captain at the con. I'd liefer not put my faith in such, but"-another sigh-"betimes we do as needs must, not as likes us."
"There you speak sooth, as I well know," Shakespeare said.
"Ah?" Lope said. "Sits the wind so? Which reckon you the play under compulsion, that which holp to free your heretic Queen, or that which would have praised a Catholic King?"
To his surprise, Shakespeare answered, "Both. Nor knew I which would play, nor which be reckoned treason, until the very day."
"Truly?"
"Truly," the English poet said, and Lope could not help believing him.
"That is a marvel, I'll not deny," he said, and rose to his feet. Shakespeare got up, too. "The Oom Karl, said you?" he asked. Shakespeare nodded. Lope had asked only for form's sake. He remembered the name of the ship. It might indeed serve him well. Ostend lay within the Spanish Netherlands. From there, he could easily find a ship bound for Spain and home.
Home! Even the word seemed strange. He'd spent almost a third of his life-and almost all his adult life-here in England. What would Madrid be like after ten years, under a new King? Would anyone there remember him? Would that printer Captain GuzmA?n knew have put his plays before the world?
That might help ease his way back into the Spanish community of actors and poets. He dared hope.
"I'm for Broken Wharf, then," he said.
"Good fortune go with you." Shakespeare set a penny on the table between them. "Here: this for the wherryman, to take you o'er the Thames."
"My thanks." Lope scooped up the coin. "You English be generous to your foes, I own. This fine dinner and a penny from you, Master Will, and I have a pound in gold of some English knight to pay my way towards Spain."
"Do you indeed?" Shakespeare murmured. He gave de Vega an odd, almost sour smile. "Belike we think us well shut of you."
"Belike you should." Lope came around the table, stood on tiptoe, and kissed Shakespeare on the cheek. "God guard thee, friend."
"Spoke like a sprightful noble gentleman," Shakespeare said, and gave back the kiss. "If we do meet again, why, we shall smile; if not, why then this parting was well made."
"Just so." Lope left the ordinary without looking back. When he got to the river, he waved for a boatman.
Waving in reply, the fellow glided up. He touched the brim of his cap. "Whither would you, sir?"
"Broken Wharf, as close by the Oom Karl as you may," de Vega replied.
"Let's see your penny," the wherryman said. Lope gave him the coin-stamped, he saw, with Isabella and Albert's images. Well, they'd fled England before him. The wherryman touched his cap again. His grin showed a couple of missing teeth. "Broken Wharf it shall be, your honor, and right yarely, too."
He did put his back into the stroke, and his heart into the abuse he bawled at other boats on the river. He had to fight the current; Broken Wharf lay some distance upstream from London Bridge, almost to St. Paul's.
As the wharf neared, Lope pointed to a three-masted carrack tied up there. "The Oom Karl?" he asked.
"Ay, sir, the same." The wherryman's voice suddenly rose to a furious scream: "Give way, thou unlicked bear-whelp!" De Vega, far from the strongest of swimmers, wondered if he could make it to the carrack after what looked like a sure collision. Somehow, though, his man's boat and the other didn't smash together. He decided God might possibly love him after all. The wherryman took it all in stride. He glided up to the base of the wharf. "We are arrived, sir. Good fortune go with you."
"Gramercy." Lope scrambled out of the boat. He walked up the wharf towards the Oom Karl. A tall man with a bushy blond beard and a gold hoop in one ear stood on deck, calling orders in guttural Dutch to the crew and cursing fluently in English at the longshoremen hauling crates and bundles aboard the ship. "God give you good day," Lope called to him, also in English. "You're bound for Ostend? What's your fare?"