Eight or ten young players, some who'd portrayed Romans and others Iceni, followed him, allies now against the Spaniards. "To the Tower!" they shouted, one after another. The youth who'd played Epona threw down his wig and rushed after them, still in a woman's shift.
And then, to Shakespeare's amazement and dismay, Burbage and Will Kemp tramped forward together, both of them plainly intent on marching on the Tower of London, too. Shakespeare seized Burbage's arm. "Hold, Dick!" he said urgently. "Let not this wild madness infect your wit. Can a swarm of rude mechanicals pull down those gray stone walls? The soldiers on 'em'll work a fearful slaughter. Throw not your life away."
Before Burbage could answer, Will Kemp did: "The soldiery on the walls may work a fearful slaughter, ay, an they have the stomach for't. But think you 'twill be so? A plot that stretcheth to the Theatre surely shall not fall short of the Tower."
Shakespeare pondered that. Of course, William Cecil's plans-Robert Cecil's now-went far beyond this production of Boudicca. The poet had seen that from the beginning. He'd seen it, but he hadn't seen all of what it meant. Here Kemp certainly saw more than he had.
Burbage added, "Having come so far, Will, would you not watch what your words have wrought?"
"Thus spake Kit Marlowe of's return to London," Shakespeare said, "and much joy he had of't." But Burbage and Kemp both jumped down onto the hard-packed dirt where the groundlings stood. Once more, Shakespeare discovered the desire not to seem a coward to his friends could push him forward where fear of death would have held him back. Cursing under his breath, damning himself for a suicide and a fool, he sprang down, too.
Another stage-Roman landed beside him and offered him a knife, saying, "I can well spare it, for I have me also this fine long sword."
"My thanks," Shakespeare said. What good the dagger would do against the arquebuses and cannon of the garrison in the Tower, he couldn't imagine. Having it somehow gave comfort even so.
Only one narrow doorway led into and out of the Theatre, the better to keep cheats from sneaking in without paying. The crowd took some little while to filter out through it. Shakespeare wondered whether the delay would stifle spirits. But no; shouts of, "To the Tower!" and, "To free the Queen!" and, "God bless good Queen Bess!" doubled and redoubled.
When at last Shakespeare escaped the building, he saw several thick columns of black smoke rising from different parts of London. Through the din and gabble around him, the distant crackle of arquebuses and pistols going off and the deeper, slower boom of cannon fire came to his ears. The city was already rising against the occupiers.
"Said I not so?" Will Kemp bawled in his ear.
"You did. And you had the right of it." Shakespeare gave credit where it was due, admitting what he could hardly deny.
Roaring down towards Bishopsgate, the crowd from the Theatre cried Elizabeth's name again and again, ever louder, ever more fiercely. They called down curses on the heads of Philip II, Philip III, and every Spaniard ever born. They cursed Isabella and Albert, too. And, every now and again, one of them would bawl out a line or two from Boudicca. Pride flowered in Shakespeare's breast. I am father to this, he thought: not the sole father, but father nonetheless.
They hadn't come far into the rickety clutter of tenements and shops and dives of Bishopsgate Ward Without the Wall when a constable-not Walter Strawberry, but a younger, thinner man with a red-blond beard-stepped into the middle of the street, held up a hand, and shouted, "Stand, there! Stand, I say!
What means this unseemly brabble?"
They showed him. Someone at the head of the baying pack stooped, picked up a stone, and flung it. It caught the constable in the face. Shakespeare, taller than most, saw blood spurt as the constable's nose smashed to ruin. With a moan, the man clutched at himself and sank to his knees. The pack rolled over him, punching, kicking, stomping, stabbing.
By the time Shakespeare went past, the constable was hardly more than a red smear trampled into the stinking muck. The poet's stomach lurched. He stumbled on, fighting not to spew up his guts. And I am father to that, he told himself, wishing he could find a sweet, soothing lie instead: not the sole father, but father nonetheless.
People stared from windows and doorways. Even here, murder was seldom done so openly. Even here, curses were seldom cried so loud, or from so many throats at once. And if anything could draw shopkeepers and laborers, robbers and thieves, barmaids and trulls, open murder and loud curses seemed the proper lodestones. The crowd swelled, as if by magic.
Every step closer to Bishopsgate raised more alarm in Shakespeare. The Spaniards and wild Irishmen standing guard at the gate would not let themselves be taken unawares, as the luckless constable had done. (Had he a wife? Children? He'd come home to them no more.) If they had time, they would close the gates against this storm. Even if they didn't, they'd surely stand and fight.
Daylight was fading, the sun sinking down through smoke towards Westminster. More than enough light remained, though, to show that Bishopsgate stood open. Cheers rose from countless throats, cheers and a renewed cry: "To the Tower! On to the Tower!"
Blood splashed the gray stone walls of the gateway. One Spanish boot lay crumpled close by. Those were the only signs Shakespeare saw that soldiers had ever stood here. Were they dead? Fled? Some dead, assuredly, he thought, eyeing the bloodstains and that boot and wondering what had befallen the man who'd worn it.
"On to the Tower! To the Tower! To free Elizabeth! To free the Queen!" Those savage shouts grew louder as the crowd from the Theatre-and from the tenements beyond the walls-swarmed into London like a conquering army. But how much like a conquering army? Shakespeare wondered, and then wished he hadn't.
They weren't the only swarm loose in the city. More cries and curses rose: some single spies, some in battalions. Madness was loosed here. Maybe Robert Cecil had worked better than even he knew.
"A don! A don!" A new shout went up. So might hunters have cried, A fox! A fox! Shakespeare got a glimpse of the Spaniard, saw horrified amazement spread across his face, saw him turn and start to run, and saw an Englishman tackle him from behind as if in a Shrove Tuesday football match. The Spaniard went down with a wail. He never got up again.
If the Spaniards could have put a line of arquebusiers in front of the rampaging crowd from the Theatre and poured a couple of volleys into it, it would have melted away. Shakespeare was sure of that. A line of armored pikemen might have halted it, too. Even as things were, groundlings and folk from the tenements-some still yelling about freeing Elizabeth-broke away to plunder shops that tempted them.
But no line of ferocious, lean-faced, swarthy Spaniards appeared. Shouts and cries and the harsh snarl of gunfire suggested the dons were busy, desperately busy, elsewhere in London. When chance swept Shakespeare and Richard Burbage together for a moment, the player said, "Belike they'll make a stand at the Tower."
"Likely so," Shakespeare agreed unhappily. Those frowning walls had been made to hold back an army, and this. thing he was a part of was anything but.
Up Tower Hill, where he'd watched the auto de fe almost a year before. A great roar, a roar full of triumph, rose from the men in front of him as they passed the crest of the hill and swept on towards the Tower Ditch and the walls beyond. And when Shakespeare crested the hill himself, he looked ahead and he roared, too, in joy and amazement and suddenly flaring hope. Will Kemp had been right, right and more than right. All the gates to the Tower of London stood open.