After some endless while, someone knocked on the door to Captain Guzman's office. Guzman snarled a Spanish curse. He pointed to the door. Lope de Vega opened it. In came a skinny, pockmarked Englishman wearing spectacles: Thomas Phelippes.
Shakespeare didn't know whether to rejoice or to despair. The Spaniards had not said a word about Phelippes, for good or ill. Did that mean the dusty little man had succeeded in covering his tracks? Or did it mean Phelippes was their man, a spy at the very heart of the plot?
Whatever he was, he spoke in Spanish far too quick and fluent to give Shakespeare any hope of following it. Before long, Baltasar GuzmA?n answered him sharply. Phelippes overrode the officer.
Shakespeare caught the name of Don Diego Flores de Valdes, the Spanish commandant in England.
He caught the name, yes, but nothing that went with it. Captain Guzman spoke again. Once again, Thomas Phelippes talked him down. Guzman looked as if he'd bitten into a lemon.
At last, Lope de Vega returned to English: "Don Diego being satisfied you are a true and trusty man, Master Shakespeare, you are at liberty to get hence, and to return to your enterprises theatrical. After King Philip be put before the general. then we may delve further into such questions as remain."
"Gramercy." Shakespeare could honestly show relief here. "And gramercy to you as well, Master Phelippes."
"Thank me not." Phelippes' voice came blizzard-cold. " 'Tis my principal's mercy upon you, not mine own. Don Diego hath a good and easy spirit. Mine is less yielding, and I do wonder at his wisdom, obey though I must. Get hence, as saith Master Lope, and thank God you have leave to go."
"By my halidom and hope of salvation, sir, I do thank Him." Shakespeare crossed himself. "For God shall be my hope, my stay, my guide and lantern to my feet." He crossed himself.
Phelippes and de Vega also made the sign of the cross. So did Captain Guzman, when Phelippes translated Shakespeare's words. Then Guzman made a brusque gesture: get out. The poet had never been so glad as to obey.
Outside the barracks, the day was dark and cloudy, with occasional cold, nasty spatters of drizzle. To Shakespeare, it seemed as glorious as the brightest, warmest, sunniest June. He'd never expected to see freedom again. A Spanish soldier-a fierce little man who wore his scars like badges of honor-coming into the building growled something at him, probably, Get out of the way. Shakespeare sprang to one side. The soldier tramped past him without a backwards glance.
Shakespeare hurried off towards the Theatre. "What is't o' clock?" he called to somebody coming the other way.
"Why, just struck one," the man answered.
Nodding his thanks, Shakespeare trotted on. The audience was filing into the wooden building in Shoreditch when he got there. One of the men at the cash box tried to take a penny from him. "Nay, 'tis Master Shakespeare," another man said. "Where were you, Master Shakespeare? You are much missed."
"Where? In durance vile," Shakespeare replied. "But I am free, and ready-more than ready-to give my lines with a good heart."
A cheer rose from the players when he rushed into the tiring room. Richard Burbage bowed as low as if he were a duke. Will Kemp sidled up to him and said, "We feared you'd ta'en sick o' the tisick that claimed Geoff Martin and Matt Quinn."
"Tisick?" the poet exclaimed. "You style it so?"
"Certes," Kemp said innocently. "A surfeit of iron in the gullet, was't not?"
"Away, away." That was Jack Hungerford. Even Kemp took the tireman seriously. He slouched off.
Hungerford said, "Out of your clothes, Master Will, and into costume, for the apparel oft proclaims the man."
"Have I time for the change?" Shakespeare asked, for he would appear in the second scene of Thomas Dekker's comedy.
"You have, sir, an you use it 'stead of talking back," Hungerford said severely. Without another word, Shakespeare donned the silk and scarlet the tireman gave him.
Not the smallest miracle of the day, at least to him, was that he did remember his lines. He even got laughs for some of them. When he came back on stage to take his bows after the play was done, he felt as dizzy as if he'd spent too long dancing round a maypole: too much had happened too fast that day.
Afterwards, as he exchanged the gorgeous costume for his ordinary clothes, Burbage came up to him and said, "We did fear you'd found misfortune-or misfortune had found you. Why so late?"
"De Vega yesterday slew Marlowe outside my lodging-house," Shakespeare answered wearily. "A man need not see far into a millstone to wonder why Kit was come thither. The dons this morning gave me an escort of soldiery to their barracks, that they might enquire into what matters he carried in's mind."
"Marry!" Burbage muttered. His proud, fleshy face went pale. "And you said?"
"Why, that I knew not, the which is only truth." Whose ears besides Richard Burbage's were listening?
Shakespeare let them hear nothing different from what he'd told de Vega and GuzmA?n. He added, "By my troth, I knew not that poor Marlowe was returned to London."
"Nor I," Burbage agreed. He too played for other ears-Shakespeare had told him Marlowe was back.
Liars both, they smiled at each other.
When Shakespeare got back to his lodging-house after the performance, the Widow Kendall gave him an even warmer welcome than his fellow players had. "Oh, Master Will, I thought you sped!" she cried.
"An the dons seize a man, but seldom returneth he."
"I am here. I am hale." Shakespeare bowed, as if to prove he'd undergone no crippling torture. " 'Twas but a misfortunate misunderstanding."
"Misunderstanding, forsooth!" Jane Kendall exclaimed. "A misunderstanding like to prove your death."
She poked him with a pudgy forefinger. "And all centering on the accursed sodomite, that Marlowe, the which Mistress Sellis' Spaniard did slay in the street like a cur-dog this day just past."
Before Shakespeare could answer, the door to Cicely Sellis' room opened. Out came the cunning woman, with a plump, worried-looking Englishman. Mommet wove around her ankles. "Fear not, sir, and trust God," she told her client. "He will provide."
"May it be so, my lady," he said, as if she were a noblewoman. Bobbing a nod to Shakespeare and the Widow Kendall, he hurried out into the gathering gloom.
After he'd closed the door behind him, Cicely Sellis said, "Lieutenant de Vega is not my Spaniard, Mistress Kendall. And, though he'd fain make me his Englishwoman, I am not that, neither."
Jane Kendall signed herself. "By my halidom, Mistress Sellis, I–I meant no harm," she stammered. "
'Twas but a-a manner of speaking." She brightened. "Yes, that's it-a manner of speaking."
"Ay, belike." The cunning woman's words said she accepted that. Her tone said something else altogether. But then, as her cat went over to Shakespeare and rubbed against his leg, she gave him a smile full of what he thought to be unfeigned gladness. "Like Mistress Kendall, right pleased am I to see you here, to see you well, once more."
"I do own I am right pleased once more to come hither," Shakespeare answered. He wondered how Cicely Sellis could have known what he and their landlady were talking about. She had, after all, been behind a closed door. Were her ears as keen as that? Shakespeare supposed it was-just-possible. He stooped to scratch the corner of Mommet's jaw. The cat pushed its head into his hand and purred louder.
"Have a care," Cicely Sellis said. "The game is not played out." She sounded almost oracular, as she had that one time in the parlor when she didn't recall what she'd said after saying it.