Ruled Britannia (48 page)

He held up his hand in turn. “This sport were better suited to the alehouse than the Theatre. What would you here, Lieutenant de Vega?”

“What would I?” Lope said “Why, only to see how you fare, my friend, and how your company fares.” He sat at the edge of the stage, his feet dangling down towards the dirt floor where the groundlings would stand come the afternoon. Shakespeare fought back a sigh. He wished the Spaniard had come for some specific reason. In that case, he would settle whatever needed settling and then leave. This way, he might stay all day, which meant no one could work on
Boudicca
all day.

“Every day that comes comes to decay a day's work in him,” Will Kemp said. “ 'Tis sweating labor, to bear such idleness so near the heart.”

Twitting a Spaniard could be dangerous. The dons were touchy of what they called their honor. What an Englishman would pass off with a smile might send a Spaniard into a killing rage. Or, equally, it might not. Lope inclined his head to the clown. “My body shall be idle whilst my wits race. Better thus than contrariwise, meseems.”

“Call you me Contrariwise?” Kemp bowed in return. “At your service, sir.”

“In sooth, you have ever been contrary to the wise,” Burbage murmured.

The clown bowed to him, too. “
Et tu, Brute?
” he said, pronouncing the name of the noblest Roman as if it were the ordinary word
brute
. Burbage winced.

So did Shakespeare, but he couldn't resist piling quibble on quibble: “Let it not be bruited about that we are aught but contrariwise to idleness.”

De Vega's gaze went from one of them to the next in turn. “You give a better show now than when the groundlings spend their pennies.”

“I say two things to that,” Will Kemp declared. “
Imprimis
, say I, piss on all those who spend their pennies here.” Shakespeare and Burbage both groaned. Lope de Vega only looked puzzled again, as he had at the title of “A Man's Yard.” Before anyone could explain the English phrase to him, Kemp went on, “And
secundus
, say I, 'tis no wonder we're better now. Come the play,
he
writes all the lines.” He pointed at Shakespeare by thrusting his thumb out between his first two fingers, and added, “I care not a fig for him.”

“Thou knew'st not what a fig meant, till thy mother taught it thee,” Shakespeare retorted, giving back the gesture. “And would thou wert a figment now.” Kemp flinched. Burbage clapped his hands. De Vega sat at the edge of the stage, smiling and waiting for the next exchange.

 

“B
Y THE
V
IRGIN
and all the saints, my dear, I wish you had been there and understood the English,” Lope told Catalina Ibañez. “They might have been fighting with rapiers, save only that their words pierced again and again without slaying, however much they might make a man wish he were dead.”

Catalina shrugged. Her low-cut, tight-fitting bodice made a shrug worth watching. “From everything I've seen, actors are always bitchy,” she said.

“No.” He shook his head. “You make it less than it is. Could I have written this down as it was spoken, and then rendered it into Spanish—”

“It would probably sound petty and foolish,” she broke in. “Such things always do, when they're not fresh.” She looked at him from under lowered lashes. “Besides, Senior Lieutenant, did you bring me here to babble about mad Englishmen?”

“Certainly not, my beautiful one,” Lope answered. “Oh, no. Certainly not.” They sat side by side on a taffeta coverlet in the leafy shade
of a small grove of willows in the yard by Whitehall, the yard given over to the Kings of Scotland whenever they chose to visit. No visit from King James seemed imminent, however much the Spaniards would have liked to see him fall into their hands. But the English kept up the yard and the buildings inside even so. Lope lifted a bottle. “More wine?”

“Why not?” Catalina answered. As he poured, a bird began to sing. She frowned. “What's that? I don't recognize the song.”

“A seed warbler, I think,” he answered. The name, necessarily, came out in English. “The bird does not dwell in Spain. I never heard it before I came here, either.”

Catalina Ibañez listened for a little while, then tossed back the wine and shivered. That, for once, had nothing to do with nasty English weather. Summer was here at last. It wasn't a patch on summer in Madrid, but it was tolerable, perhaps a bit better than tolerable. Catalina said, “Even the birds here are foreigners. No wonder I always feel so alone.”

“Alone?” Lope set his hand on hers. “Oh, no, sweetheart. How can you say such a thing, when you have . . . Don Alejandro?”

She looked over to him in surprise. She must have expected him to ask,
How can you say such a thing, when you have me?
Her nod showed a certain admiration, as if he'd made an unusual, thought-provoking move in a game of chess. Since he'd mentioned her keeper, she had to answer. And she did, with a toss of the head that sent her curls flying in pretty disarray. “Don Alejandro doesn't understand me,” she said—an old gambit, but always a good one. “He's rich, he's important, but he has no idea what a woman wants.”

Lope was neither rich nor important, and doubted he ever would be. As for the other . . . Slowly, he raised Catalina's hand to his lips. “What could a woman want,” he murmured, “but to be adored?”

That was an old line, too. It didn't work precisely as he'd hoped. “Don Alejandro is the stingiest man in the world,” Catalina went on, “and he doesn't give me presents or take me dancing or even”—she seemed to be reminding herself—“out on nice little picnics like this.”

“Well,” Lope said, “that is a pity.” All at once, he began to wonder whether taking her on this nice little picnic had been such a good idea. She was beautiful, yes, undoubtedly, but was she any less mercenary than a scarred German soldier who sold his sword to the highest bidder and walked away if his pay fell in arrears?

Catalina seemed to realize she might have shown a card or two too
many. She swayed towards him with melting eyes and said, “I'm so glad to go out anywhere at all, so very glad.” She leaned closer yet.

To kiss her was the work of a moment. Altogether without thought, Lope did. Had he thought, he might have wondered who was doing what with whom, and for which reasons. But he'd never been in the habit of thinking around women. He'd hardly even imagined the possibility till his chance meeting with the odd Englishwoman with the cat. And so he kissed Catalina Ibañez, and things went on from there.

She sighed, deep in her throat, and twisted to press herself against him. “Ah,
querido
,” she murmured when their lips parted at last. “You don't know how long I've wanted to do that.”

“And I,” Lope said. “Oh, yes, by God, and I.” He kissed her again. Her mouth tasted of wine, but sweeter still.

Except for the twittering birds, they were all alone. The willow branches hung down almost to the ground, shielding them from prying eyes. The grass under the taffeta coverlet was long and soft and resilient. Catalina slapped Lope's hands away a couple of times as he began to explore her, but it was only for show, and they both knew it. She giggled when he nibbled the side of her smooth white neck. The giggle turned to a soft, almost breathless sigh as he slid down so his tongue could tease a nipple.

She sighed again, not very much later, when he poised himself above her and thrust home, as if with the rapier. Her thighs clasped his flanks. Her arms squeezed him as if she never wanted to let him go. English summer, he discovered, was more than warm enough to work up a pleasant sweat, provided one found the right company.

“Oh, Lope!” Catalina gasped, just before his moment of joy. Then she let out a little mewling cry that oddly made him think of Mommet, Cicely Sellis' cat, even though he'd never heard Mommet make a sound. Her nails, sharp as little daggers, scored his back. He drove deep and spent himself.

Her mouth twisted in regret when he pulled out of her. But she quickly started putting herself to rights. De Vega got dressed, too. He reached out to pat her bare backside as she pulled up her drawers. “Even more than I imagined,” he told her.

“Imagined?” She raised a hand to her face, as if to hide a blush, as if to say she couldn't imagine a man hungrily imagining making love to her.

“It was all I could do,” he said. “It was. But no more.” Had he been a
few years younger, he would have laid her down on the taffeta coverlet and taken her again then and there. He sighed for lost youth. There would be other chances, though, and soon. And he would be seeing Lucy Watkins again before long. It wasn't as if he'd fallen out of love with her when he fell in love with Catalina Ibañez.

And what might that Englishwoman with the cat be like between the sheets? Lope hadn't thought about finding a lover older than himself since he was eighteen. For that one, he thought he would make an exception.

“We had better get you back,” he said to Catalina, shaking his mind free of the women he wasn't with. He gave the woman he was with a quick kiss. “I don't believe I ever enjoyed a picnic more.”

“I should hope not.” She drew herself up with touchy pride.
Oh, yes—this one is all ice and fire
, Lope thought.
Never a dull moment with her around
. He put the cork back in the wine bottle. He'd brought along a loaf of bread and a pot of honey, too. Honey and bread remained untouched. He smiled as he bundled them into the coverlet.
I tasted better sweets than honey today
.

Hand in hand, he and Catalina walked through the ankle-high grass of the yard no King of Scotland was likely to visit any time soon, towards the gate by which they'd come in. They'd gone about halfway from the willow grove when the gate opened. A tall, broad-shouldered man walked into the yard and strode purposefully towards them.

“
¡Ay, madre de Dios!
” Catalina Ibañez yelped. She dropped Lope's hand as if it were on fire. Under her paint, her face went white as milk. “It's Don Alejandro!”

Lope let the coverlet fall to the grass. The wine bottle clanked against the honey pot. He hoped they didn't break, but that was the least of his worries right now. His right hand fell to the hilt of his rapier. He'd worn it as much for swank as on the off chance of trouble. Without it, he'd be a dead man now.

I may be a dead man anyhow
. Don Alejandro went from purposeful walk to thudding trot. His rapier leaped free of its sheath. The long, slim, deadly blade glittered in the sun. “De Vega!” the nobleman bellowed. “Ten thousand demons from hell, de Vega, what are you doing with my woman?”

Had de Recalde come in a few minutes earlier, he would have seen for himself what Lope was doing. By Catalina's delighted response, the nobleman would have learned something, too. This seemed neither
time nor place for that discussion. Lope drew his own sword. But he gave as mild an answer as he could: “Talking about the theatre.”

“Liar! Dog! Son of a dog!” Don Alejandro shouted, and roared down on him like an avalanche. Steel clattered from steel. Sparks flew. Catalina screamed. “Shut up, you little
puta
!” Don Alejandro shouted. “You're next!”

His first long, abrupt thrust almost pierced Lope's heart; de Vega barely managed to beat the blow aside. He couldn't counter. Fast as a striking serpent, Don Alejandro thrust for his belly. Only a hasty backwards leap saved him from owning a second navel. And any puncture a couple of inches deep probably meant death, either from bleeding or, more slowly and painfully, from fever.

Don Alejandro de Recalde was a picture fencer, with a style as pure as any Lope had ever seen. He kept his blade in front of his body and poised to strike at every moment, and he was quick and strong. He might have stepped out of a swordmaster's school and straight into the King of Scotland's yard. For their first few exchanges, Lope wondered how he could possibly come through the fight alive. And then, as he managed a thrust at Don Alejandro's belly and the nobleman beat his blade aside with a perfect parry, he suddenly smiled a most unpleasant smile.

His next thrust wasn't at Don Alejandro's midriff—it was at his face. Catalina's keeper turned that one, too, but not so elegantly, and he jerked his head back in a way no fencing master would have approved. Lope's smile grew wider and nastier. “Don't do a lot of real righting, you say?” he panted.

“I say
nothing
to you, de Vega,” de Recalde snarled, and bored in again. “Nothing!”
Clang! Clang! Clang!
went their swords, as if they were battling it out up on stage.

But swordplay in real fighting was different from what went on with the groundlings cheering down below. It was different from what the fencing masters taught, too. Lope thrust at Don Alejandro's face again. This time, his foe didn't jerk away fast enough. The point pierced his cheek. The nobleman howled in pain. Blood ran down the side of his jaw. Catalina Ibañez shrieked.

“They don't show you that in school, do they?” Lope jeered. He knew perfectly well they didn't. Nobody included blows to the face in fencing exercises. They were too dangerous. Swordmasters who slaughtered their students or scarred them for life weren't likely to get much new business.