" Buenos dias, Your Excellency," Lope de Vega said, sweeping off his hat and bowing to Captain Baltasar GuzmA?n. "How may I serve you this morning?"
" Buenos dias, Lieutenant," Guzman replied. "First of all, let me compliment you on La dama boba.
Your lady was a most delightful boob, and I thoroughly enjoyed watching her antics yesterday."
Lope bowed again, this time almost double. "I am your servant, sir!" he exclaimed in delight. His superior had never before paid him such a compliment for his theatrical work-or, indeed, for work of any other kind.
Captain Guzman went on, "And my compliments especially for wringing such a fine performance from your Diego. I know that cannot have been easy."
"Had I known I would have to use him, I would have made the servant a sleepier man," de Vega said.
"As things were-" He mimed cracking a whip over Diego's back.
"Even so." Guzman nodded. Then he raised an elegant eyebrow and asked, "Tell me: after which of your mistresses was Lady Nisea modeled? Or should I say, which of your former mistresses? The story is, they had it in mind to throw you into the bear pit for the mastiffs' sport."
"Please believe me, your Excellency, it was not so bad as that." He asked Captain GuzmA?n to believe him. He didn't tell his superior that what he said was true.
Guzman's eyebrows rose higher still. "No, eh? It certainly has been a mighty marvel hereabouts. I suppose I should admire your energy, if not your luck at the bear garden. Everyone who saw them says a man would be lucky to have one such woman, let one two."
How can I answer that? de Vega wondered. Deciding he couldn't, he didn't try. Instead, he repeated, "How may I serve you, sir?"
Rather than answering him directly, Baltasar Guzman said, "Your timing could have been better, Lieutenant. In fact, it could hardly have been worse."
"Sir?"
"Have you forgotten you are to meet with Cardinal Parsons this morning?" GuzmA?n eyed him, then assumed a severe expression. "I see you have. What a pity. It could be that the Cardinal, being an Englishman and having just come from Canterbury, has not heard of your, ah, escapade. It could be. I hope it is. But I would not count on it. The man is devilishly well informed."
Lope sighed. "Yes, sir. I know he is," he said glumly. "I'll do the best I can."
"Splendid. I'm sure you said the same to both your lady friends."
Ears burning, Lope beat a hasty retreat from Captain GuzmA?n's office. As he'd feared, Enrique waylaid him in the hall. GuzmA?n's servant also bubbled with enthusiasm for La dama boba. "I especially admired Nisea's transformation from a boob to a woman with a mind-and a good mind-of her own," he said.
Since Lope had worked especially hard to bring off that transformation, Enrique's praise should have delighted him. And, in fact, it did leave him pleased, but he had no time for Enrique now. "You will excuse me, I hope," he said, "but I'm on my way to St. Paul's."
"Oh, yes, of course, for your meeting with the Archbishop of Canterbury." Enrique nodded wisely.
Everyone knows my business better than I do, de Vega thought with a stab of resentment. Captain Guzman's servant continued, "He is a very wise man, and a very holy man, too, no doubt."
"I know," Lope said, desperate to be gone. "If you will excuse me-" Retreating still, he hurried out of the Spanish barracks and west to the greatest cathedral in London. The booksellers near the steps tempted him to linger, but he resisted temptation and went up the stairs and into the great church. If books came bound in skirts, though. Annoyed at himself, he shook his head to try to dislodge the vagrant thought. A deacon came up to him as he stepped into the cool, dim quiet. "And you would be, sir.?" the fellow asked in English.
Lope proudly replied in his own Castilian tongue: "I have the honor to call myself Senior Lieutenant Lope de Vega Carpio."
He was not surprised to find the deacon spoke Spanish, too. "Ah, yes. You will be here to meet the Archbishop of Canterbury. Come with me, seA±or."
Quiet evaporated as the deacon led de Vega through the cathedral. Masterless men dickered with merchants and artisans who might have work for them. Lawyers in rich robes traded gossip. Smiling bonarobas, fragrant with sweet perfume and showing as much soft flesh as they dared, lingered near the lawyers. One of the women smiled at Lope. He ignored her, which turned the smile to a scowl. He didn't care to buy a tart's favors, no matter how fancy and lovely she was: he preferred to fall in love, or at least to imagine he'd fallen in love. And what's the difference? he wondered. Only how long the feeling lasts.
"Do have a care," the deacon warned him. "Picking pockets, or slitting them, is a sport here."
"This too, I suppose, is Christian charity," Lope said. The deacon gave him an odd look.
Away from the vast public spaces of St. Paul's were the chambers the clergy used for their own. The deacon led de Vega to one of those. Then, like Enrique going in to see Captain Guzman, he said, "Wait here for a moment, please," and ducked into the room by himself. When he returned, he beckoned. "His Eminence awaits you with pleasure."
"He is too kind," Lope murmured.
Even in the rich regalia of a cardinal, Robert Parsons looked like a monk. His face was long and thin and pale; his close-cropped, graying beard did nothing to hide the hollows under his cheekbones. He held out his ring for de Vega to kiss. "I am pleased to make your acquaintance, Senior Lieutenant," he said in Latin.
"Thank you, your Eminence," Lope replied in the same language. He switched to English: "I speak your tongue, sir, an you have no Spanish."
"I prefer Latin. It is more precise," Parsons said. By his appearance, he was nothing if not a precise man.
"As you wish, of course." Lope hoped his own Latin would meet the test. He read it well, but he was no clergyman, and so did not often speak it. "I am at your service in every way."
"Good." Cardinal Parsons looked down at some notes on his desk and nodded to himself. "I am told you are the Spanish officer most concerned with sniffing out treason in the English theatre."
"Yes, your Eminence, I believe that to be true," Lope answered, pleased he'd remembered to use the infinitive.
"This is because"-the Archbishop of Canterbury checked his notes again-"you are yourself an aspiring dramatist?"
"Yes, your Eminence," de Vega repeated, wondering if the English churchman would take him to task for it.
But Parsons only said, "I am glad to hear it, Lieutenant. For treason is afoot in that sphere, and you, being familiar with its devices, are less likely to let yourself be cozened than would someone uninitiated in its mysteries."
Lope had to think before he answered. The cardinal's Latin was so fluent, so confident, he might have been whisked by a sorcerer from the days of Julius Caesar to this modern age. He made no concessions to Lope's weaker Latinity; Lope got the idea Parsons made few concessions to anyone, save possibly the Pope.
"Your Eminence, I go to the theatre more to watch the audience than to watch the actors," de Vega said.
"Many of them I know well, and they have not shown themselves disloyal to Queen Isabella and King Albert."
Robert Parsons snorted like a horse. Lope needed a moment to realize that was intended for laughter.
Parsons said, "And how likely is it that they would declare their treason before an officer of his Most Catholic Majesty of Spain?"
"You make me out to be a fool, a child," Lope said angrily.
"By no means, Lieutenant." The Archbishop of Canterbury's smile was cold as winter along the Scottish border. "With your own words, you make yourself out to be such."
Without his intending it, de Vega's hand moved a couple of inches toward the hilt of his rapier. He arrested the motion. Even if he was insulted, drawing sword on a prelate would certainly send him to gaol, and probably to hell. He gave the cardinal a stiff bow. "If you will excuse me, your Eminence-"