"I thank our worship," he murmured, and touched his hand to the brim of his hat as he ducked down the side street that would take him to the Widow Kendall's. The Spaniard nodded in return and led his men south and west along Threadneedle. A decent man doing well the task to which he was set, Shakespeare thought. More than a few of the occupiers were decent men. Still, the task to which Philip had set them was the subjugation of England. And, on nine years' evidence, they did it well.
"Oh, Master Will, 'tis good to see you," Jane Kendall said when Shakespeare came into her house. As he went over to stand by the fire, she continued, "I was sore afeard them Spanish devils had took you."
"Not so. As you see, I'm here." Shakespeare looked around the parlor. "But where's Master Foster?
Most days, he is before me, and, having somewhat to do betwixt close of Theatre and my coming hither, I know I am later than I might be."
"Later than you ought to be," the Widow Kendall said in reproving tones. "And as for Master Peter-"
Before she could go on, Jack Street broke in: "He's in the Hole. They nabbed him at last. I wouldn't guess what his law was, but outside the law, certes."
Shakespeare didn't know what his missing roommate's illegal specialty was, either, but wasn't surprised to learn those in authority thought Peter Foster had one. "Can we do aught for him?" he asked.
Jack Street gloomily shook his head. "Not unless we want them bastards asking after us next," the glazier said, which struck Shakespeare as altogether too likely.
"He's paid till the end of the month," Widow Kendall said. "An he bide yet in gaol then, I'll sell his goods for what they bring." She thought more of what she might do for herself than for her lodger.
After warming himself by the fire, Shakespeare went off to the ordinary around the corner for supper. A sizzling beefsteak and half a loaf to sop up the juices made him a happy man. He took out his quill and his bottle of ink and set to work on Love's Labour's Won. "By God, Master Will, what is it like, to have so many words in your head?" the serving woman asked.
"So that they come forth, Kate, all's well," he answered. "But if my thoughts be dammed, then I'm damned with them." He pounded his forehead with the heel of his hand to try to show her the feeling he got when the words would not move from his mind to the page in front of him.
She laughed and nodded and said, "Will another mug of beer loose the flow?"
"One other may," he said, and she poured his mug full from the pitcher she carried. He went on, "Ask me not again, I pray you, for with too much drink I've trouble knowing whether the words that come be worth the having."
"I'll leave you to't, then," Kate said, and she did.
But tonight the words, whether worth the having or not, did not want to come. Shakespeare stared into the candle flame and tried all the other tricks he knew to break the wall between his wit and his pen, but had little luck. While the upper part of his mind dutifully tried to get on with Love's Labour's Won, the deeper wellspring, the part from which inspiration sprang, dwelt with the woes of the ancient Iceni, not with his present characters. He smote his forehead again, this time in good earnest. The sudden pain did him no good, either.
He looked around in frustration. He had none but himself to blame for his troubles. The hour grew late; he was the only customer left in the place. With everything quiet and serene, he should have written as if fiends were after him. He muttered a curse. Fiends were after him, but not the sort that set his pen free.
When Kate came by again, he laid down the pen with a sigh. She gave him a sympathetic smile, saying, "I saw you troubled, but did not like to speak, for fear I might send flying the one word that'd free you."
"That word's nowhere to be found tonight, or else already flown," Shakespeare answered ruefully. "Were my pen a poniard, it would not stab."
"Say not so, for I know thy yard pierces," Kate said. Her smile, this time, was of a different kind.
"Ah. Sits the wind in that quarter, then?" Without waiting for an answer, Shakespeare got to his feet.
Even at such a moment, he was careful to gather up his precious manuscript and pens and ink before heading for the stairway with the serving woman. "Thou'rt sweet, Kate, to give of thyself to a spring gone dry like me."
"Spring's a long way off, and it's cold outside," she said. "And I doubt me thou'rt dry in all thy humors.
Else, after last we lay between the sheets, why found I a wet spot there?"
Laughing, he slipped an arm around her waist. "I own myself outargued," he said. She snuggled against him and sighed softly. He held up his papers. "Belike thou couldst outwrite me, too. Art fain to try?"
"Go to," she said. "Me that needs must make a mark to set down my name?"
They came to the top of the stairs. Her door stood just to the right. She opened it. They went inside.
Kate closed the door. Shakespeare took her in his arms. "Kiss me," he said. She did.
When he left the ordinary, he'd come no further forward on Love's Labour's Won. His head was high and he had a spring in his step even so. He started to whistle a ballad, then fell silent and shrank into a dark doorway when he heard other footsteps coming down the dark street. If it wasn't curfew time, it was close. Running into a patrol now was the last thing he wanted. The men who walked by spoke in low voices, and in English. He would have bet they too didn't want to run into a patrol. And he didn't want to run into them, either, and silently sighed with relief when they vanished into the fog.
He sat down at the table in the parlor once he got back to his lodgings, hoping he could set a few words down on paper before he got too sleepy to work. But he hadn't written above a line and a half before Peter Foster stuck his head into the room to see what was going on. "Oh. Master Will. God give you good even," he said.
"Give you good even," Shakespeare echoed automatically. Then he gaped. "They said you were in the Hole!"
"Why, so I was." Foster laid a finger by the side of his nose. "God gave me a good even, and a good set of gilks and a bit of charm besides." He held up the skeleton keys for Shakespeare to admire. He looked like a man used to picking locks, sure enough.
"Bravely done," the poet said. "But will they not come after you again?"
"Since when? Belike the turnkey knows not I'm gone," Peter Foster said with fine contempt. "Nay, Will, I'll couch a hogshead here tonight, then budge a beak come morning. I tell you true, I'll be glad to 'scape that sawmill who sleeps with us."
"As you reckon best," Shakespeare said with a shrug. "Me, I'd not care to sleep here in my own bed before fleeing the sheriffs."
"You fret more than I," Foster said, not unkindly; perhaps he was doing his best not to call Shakespeare a coward. "May I turn Turk if they're here or ever I'm gone. You've seen naught of me, mind."
"Think what you will of me, but I'm no delator," Shakespeare said. And if they pull off my boots and give me the bastinado till I can bear no more? He did his best not to think about that. He was glad when Peter Foster nodded, apparently satisfied, and went off to bed. But, by the way Love's Labour's Won foundered, it might have been aboard Sir Patrick Spens' ship on the luckless voyage to Norway.
Shakespeare went to bed himself. Jack Street did indeed make the night hideous, but his snores were the least of what kept Shakespeare awake so long.
When he got up, Foster was gone. No one had come after the clever little man with the interesting tools.
Shakespeare went off to the Theatre in a thoughtful mood. His roommate knew crime as he himself knew poesy, and might well have made a better living at his chosen trade.