Ruled Britannia (19 page)

He had no trouble getting soldiers to come with him. When he told the men eating in the refectory what his mission was, they clamored to come along. “By St. James, sir,” one of them said, crossing himself, “the sooner we get rid of troublemakers like that, the better. They stir the Englishmen up against us, and that gives us no end of grief.”

“Let's go, then,” Lope said. Some of the Spaniards paused to gulp down wine or beer or stuff a last bite or two into their mouths, but for no more than that. They buckled on swords, picked up spears and arquebuses and back-and-breasts, set high-crowned morions on their heads, and followed de Vega south and east from the barracks towards noisome Pudding Lane.

London had been occupied long enough and grown peaceful enough to make a couple of dozen Spaniards tramping through the streets—obviously on some business, not merely patrolling—something less than ordinary. “ 'Ware! 'Ware!” The cry rang out again and again.
So much for surprise
, Lope thought.

From farther away, he heard another cry: “Clubs!” That was the shout London apprentices raised when they went into a brawl. Before long, a pack of them—some armed with clubs, others carrying daggers or stones—came up the street towards the men he led.

“Give way,” he shouted in English. “Give way, or you will be sorry for
it!” He nodded to his own men. They were better armed than the apprentices, and armored to boot. They also looked eager to take on the youngsters who'd come up against them. The 'prentices stopped, wavered . . . broke.

One of the soldiers laughed. “They haven't got the
cojones
to stand up to real men,” he said. “We beat them when we first got ashore, and we can beat them again if we have to.”

“That's right,” another soldier said. But then he added, “I'd sooner not fight, so long as we can hold 'em down without it.” That perfectly summed up Lope's view of things.

He had wondered if his nose could guide him to Pudding Lane. But London was a city of such multifarious stinks, he had to ask his way. He had to ask his way twice, in fact; the first Englishman who gave him directions told him a lie and got him lost.
No, they don't all love us
, he thought.

But he made a better choice with the second man he asked. The fellow was sleek and prosperous, with fur trim on his doublet. He made a leg at Lope, and fawned on him like a dog hoping to be patted. “Ay, good my lord, certes; 'tis no small honor to enjoy the privilege of directing you thither.” He pointed south. “Do you go to the church of St. George in Botolph Lane, and then one street the further, and you have it. God grant you catch whatever villain you seek, too.”

“God grant it indeed.” Lope crossed himself, and was not surprised to see the Englishman follow his lead. Folk who had clung to the Roman faith before the Armada came were likeliest to uphold the new Queen and King—and the Spaniards who kept them on their throne.

This man said, “We have seen too much of wars and strife. Let there be peace, of whatever kind.”

“Amen,” Lope replied. Privately, he thought that a craven's counsel. But it worked to keep the kingdom quiet. He would have had all the English so craven.

After more bows and a ceremonious leavetaking, Lope translated for his men what the sleek fellow had said. “Let's find the church, let's find the street, let's find the son of a whore we're after, and then, by God, let's find something to drink,” one of them said. Several others nodded approval.

So did Lope. “We may find this Walsh and something to drink together,” he said, “for I hear he prophesies in taverns.”

The soldier who'd spoken before guffawed. “And after he's drunk
enough, he's one of these piss-prophets,” he said, which got a laugh from everyone else. Plenty of people made a living divining the future—or saying they did—by examining their clients' urine.

Someone emptied a chamber pot from a second-story window. No way to be sure if the stinking contents were aimed at the Spaniards. A couple of men—including the fellow who'd made the joke—got splashed, but most of the stuff just went into the mud of the street, which already held more than its fair share of ordure and piss. “Eh, Sancho, now
you're
a piss-prophet,” one of the other troopers said. Sancho's reply was almost as pungent as the air.

Pudding Lane was only a couple of blocks long, but made up in stench what it lacked in length. De Vega marveled that he hadn't found it by scent. Along with all the usual London miasmas, he smelled pig shit, pig piss, rotting swine's flesh, pig
fear
. “Any man from this street must be a false prophet,” he said, “for not even God Himself could stand getting close enough to him to tell him anything.”

He started asking after John Walsh. “I don't ken the man,” one hog butcher said. “Never heard of him,” said a second. “An he be who I think he is, he died o' the French pox summer afore last,” a third said. “A went home to Wales, a did, whence a came,” a fourth offered. “Seek him in Southwark. He dwelleth there these days, with a punk from a pick-hatch,” a fifth declared.

Patiently, Lope kept asking. Sooner or later, he was bound to come on someone who either favored Isabella and Albert or simply craved peace and quiet. And he did. A lean man in a pigskin apron looked up from his work and said, “Belike you'll find him in the Blue Fox, half a block toward the Tower in East Cheap.”

Again, Lope translated for his men. “A good thing we have you with us,
señor
,” irrepressible Sancho said. “If we had to look for interpreters, everything would take three times as long, and like as not they'd tell us more lies than truth.”

De Vega wasn't sure the lean man hadn't told a lie. But the tavern, to his relief, did prove easy to find. A signboard with the silhouette of a running fox, bright blue, hung above the door. “You men stay here in the street,” Lope said. “I'll go in alone. If God is kind, I'll hear the man speaking treason from his own lips. Then I'll signal for you. “If not”—he shrugged—“again, it's God's will.”

“Honor to your courage, Lieutenant,” a soldier said.

“This for courage.” Lope snapped his fingers. “I want to deal with
this fellow as quickly as may be, for I have business of my own to attend to.” Some of the men winked and sniggered and made lewd jokes he only half heard. Thanks to his reputation, they thought he meant business with a woman, or with more than one.
But is not the Muse a woman, too?
he thought.

He sat down at a table near the door in the Blue Fox. “Ale,” he said when a barmaid came up to him: it was a word he could pronounce without revealing himself as a foreigner. He set a penny on the table. The woman snatched it up and came back with a mug of nasty, sour stuff. He wished he'd taken a chance and asked for wine.

But he didn't have to drink much. He nursed the mug and looked around. He also wished someone had described John Walsh to him. The place was full of Englishmen, most of them—by their talk and by the smell—pig butchers. Was Walsh here? Could he ask without giving himself away? If that fellow in the pigskin apron had steered him away from the wanted man and not toward him . . .
I'll make him sorry if he did. I'll make him worse than sorry
.

“Hear me, friends,” a squat, homely, pockmarked man said, and the folk in the tavern
did
hear him: something close to silence fell. Lope pretended to drink ale as the pockmarked man—who also had on a pigskin apron over his jerkin and hose—clambered up onto a table and went on, “You know God hath it in His mind for us to be free o' the Spaniard, for doth He not say, ‘When you therefore shall see the abomination of the desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place, (whoso readeth, let him understand)'? And understand we not all too well who is the aforesaid abomination of the desolation? And stand not his minions on the holy soil of England?”

“That's right, John!” someone called.

“Tell us more!” someone else added.

“Right gladly will I,” said the pig butcher, who had to be John Walsh. “Again, in the selfsame book of Matthew, saith not the Lord, ‘Then they shall deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you: and ye shall be hated of all nations, for my name's sake. And then shall many be offended, and shall betray one another, and shall hate one another'? Saith He not that very thing? And are we not afflicted, yea, sore afflicted, and slain? And betray we not one another, and hate we not likewise one another? But hark ye to what He saith next. Hark ye, now: ‘And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold. But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved.' ”

He switched from Matthew to Revelations, but Lope had heard enough. Setting down his mug, he ducked out of the Blue Fox and beckoned to the soldiers. With them behind him, he stormed back into the tavern and shouted out a verse from Matthew that John Walsh had skipped: “ ‘And many false prophets shall arise, and shall deceive many.' ” Then he switched to Spanish, shouting, “Arrest that man there on the table. Santiago and forward!”

“Santiago!” the soldiers roared. They rushed toward the preaching pig butcher.

“Limb of Satan!” an Englishman cried. He hurled his mug at Lope, who ducked. The mug shattered on the morion of the man behind him. Another flying mug hit a Spaniard in the face. He fell with a groan, his nose smashed and bloody.

A moment later, a Spanish sword bit into the pig butcher who'd thrown the mug that hurt the soldier. The Englishman shrieked. More blood spurted, improbably red. “Let it begin here, as St. John the Divine saith it shall begin at the end of days!” John Walsh bellowed. “The star called Wormwood and the smiting of the sun! Ay, let it begin here!”

“Wormwood!” the Englishmen yelled.

Lope wondered if they knew what the word meant. Not likely, he judged, but it made a fine rallying cry even so. As for him, he shouted, “We
must
take the false preacher now, or London goes up in riot!” It had happened before, though not for four or five years. If it happened again, the blame would land on him. Where would they send him then? The Scottish border? The Welsh mountains? Ireland, which was supposed to be worse than either? Was any place worse than Ireland? If any was, they'd send him
there
.

An arquebus bellowed, deafeningly loud in the close tavern. The lead ball buried itself in the wall. After that, the firearm was good for nothing but a clumsy club. In a tavern brawl, bludgeons and knives and swords counted for more than guns. De Vega wished for a firearm that shot more than one ball, or at least for one that could be reloaded quickly. Wishing didn't help.

The Spaniards' armor did. So did the extra distance at which they could do harm, thanks to their swords. But then an Englishman, an enormous fellow, picked up a bench and swung it like a club. The weapon was clumsy but potent. The Englishman felled two soldiers in quick succession.

Another swing almost caved in Lope's skull. But he ducked, stepped
close, and stabbed the big man in the stomach with his rapier. The bench fell from the man's hands as he wailed and clutched at himself. “Come on!” Lope shouted. Only a small knot of stubborn defenders still protected John Walsh.

“Let's away out the back door!” one of them said. De Vega cursed in sonorous Spanish. He hadn't known the Blue Fox
had
a back door. He hurled himself at the Englishmen, doing his best to forestall their escape.

A couple of them tried to hustle Walsh toward the back of the tavern. They might have pulled him to safety, but he didn't seem to want to go. “Nay, nay!” he cried, struggling in their grasp as if they were arresting him. “Let it begin here! It must begin
here
!”

Sancho tackled him. When he went down, half a dozen Spaniards leaped on him, while the rest drove back or knocked down the Englishmen still on their feet. “Is he still alive?” Lope asked.

“Yes, Senior Lieutenant. He'll live to hang,” one of his troopers answered.

“After this, I think hanging's too good for him,” Lope said. “But tie him up and gag him. Gag him well, by God, or the filth he shouts out will bring the English down on us before we can get him to safety.”

Even as things were, stones flew when they emerged from the Blue Fox. But another arquebusier brought his match to the touch-hole of his weapon. It roared and belched forth a great cloud of pungent smoke. And the ball, as much by luck as anything else, knocked an Englishman kicking. The others drew back, naive enough to believe the Spaniards likely to hit twice in a row. Knowing better than they what arquebuses could do, Lope silently thanked them for their caution.

Back at the Spanish barracks, Captain Guzmán asked, “You have the prisoner?”

“Yes, your Excellency,” Lope replied.

Guzmán ignored his draggled state and the wounds his men had taken. He'd given the right answer. “
Muy bien
, Lieutenant,” Guzmán said. “You may now return to the Theatre.” Weariness fell from Lope. Guzmán had given the right answer, too.

 

S
AM
K
ING STEPPED
on William Shakespeare's foot. “Ow!” Shakespeare yelped; the young man still wore muddy boots. A little more calmly, the poet added, “ 'Ware wheat, Master King; 'ware wheat.”