The Spaniards went through the Bacons' home with a methodical ferocity that said they would have done well as robbers-and that might have said some of them had more than a little practice at the trade. They examined every space that might possibly have held a man, from the cellars to the kitchens to the attic.
They knocked holes in several walls: some Protestants' houses had "preacher holes" concealed with marvelous cunning. A couple of troopers went out onto the roof; Lope listened to their boots clumping above his head.
They did not find Anthony Bacon.
His brother Francis asked, "How much of my own will they leave me?" By the way the troopers' pouches got fatter and fatter as time went by, the question seemed reasonable.
But Captain Guzman was not inclined to listen to reason. His hand dropped to the hilt of his rapier once more. "You will cease your whining," he said in a soft, deadly voice. "Otherwise, I shall start inquiring amongst the younger servants here about your habits."
If he had any evidence that Francis Bacon liked boys, too, he hadn't mentioned it to Lope. But if that was a shot in the dark, it proved an inspired one. The younger Bacon sucked in a horrified breath and went even whiter than the portrait of his brother.
With more clumping, the cavalrymen on the roof came down. The ones who'd gone through the house returned to the front hall. "No luck, your Excellencies," their sergeant said. "Not a slice of this Bacon did we find." Now he was making de Vega's joke.
Lope did his best to look on the bright side. "We'll run him down."
Baltasar Guzman nodded. "We'll run him down, or we'll run him out of the kingdom. Let him play the bugger in France or Denmark. They deserve him. Let's go." He led Lope and the troop of cavalrymen out of the house. Francis Bacon stared after them, but said not another word.
As Lope mounted his horse and started riding back to London, he thought, Nobody would dare call GuzmA?n a maricA?n now, not after the way he's hunted Anthony Bacon. The troop had almost got back to the barracks before something else along those lines occurred to him. No one would dare call Captain Guzman a marican now, but does that really prove he isn't one? He worried at that the rest of the day, but found no answer to it.
The expression Will Kemp aimed at Shakespeare lay halfway between a leer and a glower.
"Well, Master Poet, what have you done with Tom?"
"Naught," Shakespeare answered, blinking. "Is he not here?" He looked around the Theatre. He'd just got there, a little later than he might have. He saw no sign of the company's best boy actor.
Kemp went on leering. "An you've done naught, what wish you you'd done with him?"
"Naught!" Shakespeare said again, this time in some alarm. Tom was a comely-more than a comely-youth, and such liaisons happened often enough in the tight, altogether masculine world of the theatre. But what might be a jest at another time could turn deadly now. If the Spaniards or the English Inquisition started wondering if he were a sodomite, they might also start wondering if he were a traitor.
What was buggery, after all, but treason against the King of Heaven?
But from the tiring room came a sharp command: "Go to, Kemp! Give over."
Had Richard Burbage spoke to the clown like that, a fight would have blown up on the spot. Not even Kemp, though, failed to respect Jack Hungerford. He asked the tireman, "Know you somewhat o' this matter, then?"
"Ay, somewhat, and more than somewhat, the which is somewhat more than you," Hungerford answered.
"What's toward, then, Master Hungerford?" Shakespeare asked. Maybe, if everyone stuck to facts, no one would throw any more insults around. And maybe the horse will learn to sing, Shakespeare thought-one more bit of Grecian not quite folly he had from Christopher Marlowe.
"My knowledge is not certain, mind," the tireman said. Shakespeare braced himself to squelch Will Kemp before the clown could offer sardonic agreement there, but Kemp, for a wonder, simply waited for Hungerford to go on. And go on he did: "Some will know and some will have guessed Tom hath been. an object of desire for those whose affections stand in that quarter."
That proved too much for Kemp to resist. "When their affections stand," he said, "they want to stick 'em up his-"
He didn't finish. Somebody-Shakespeare didn't see who-shied a pebble or a clod of dirt at him. He let out an irate squawk. Before he could do anything more, Shakespeare broke in to say, "Carry on, Master Hungerford, I pray you."
"Gramercy. So I shall. As I said, he's a Ganymede fit to tempt any who'd fain be Jove. But even as Jove cast down Saturn, so Tom's Jove himself's been o'erthrown. Anthony Bacon's fled London, a short jump ahead of the dons."
"Bacon?" Shakespeare said. "Lord Burghley's nephew?" He'd met Burghley in the house that belonged to Anthony Bacon and his younger brother.
Hungerford nodded. "The same, methinks."
"He is fled?"
The tireman nodded again. "Not caught yet, by all accounts. He being a man of parts, haply he may cross to the Continent still free."
"To the Continent? No, sir. No!" Kemp said. "Were he continent, he'd need not flee, now would he?
And forsooth! a man of parts. I knew not till this moment sausage was a Bacon's troublous part."
Shakespeare groaned. Hungerford looked pained. Kemp preened. Shakespeare asked, "Tom was Bacon's ingle, then? I own I have seen Bacon here, though never to my certain knowledge overtopping the bounds of decency."
" a€?To my certain knowledge,' " Kemp echoed in a mocking whine. "Why think you he came hither?
For the plays?" He laughed that idea to scorn, adding, "Quotha, his brother could write the like, did he please to do't."
"A rasher Bacon never spake," Shakespeare said indignantly. Will Kemp opened his mouth for another gibe of his own, then did a better double take than most he used on stage, sending Shakespeare a reproachful stare. The poet looked back blandly.
Missing the byplay, Jack Hungerford said, "I fear me Tom'll not return to the boards. He's smirched, and would smirch us did we use him henceforward."
That had several possibilities. Kemp rose to none of them. Shakespeare eyed him in some surprise. The wealth of his wit outdone by the wealth of his choices? the poet wondered. No other explanation made sense.
Then, suddenly, Shakespeare raised a hand to his mouth to smother a laugh. What did Paul say in his epistle to the Romans? All things work together for good to them that love God, that was the verse.
Now he couldn't have to worry about either asking Catholic Tom to play Boudicca or finding some good reason for not asking him. He hadn't just found a good reason-the Spaniards themselves had handed him one.
But the more he thought about it, the less inclined he was to laugh. Maybe the way that verse from Paul's epistle had worked out here was a sign God truly lay on his side, Lord Burghley's side, Elizabeth's side, England's side. Shakespeare hoped so with all his heart. Their side needed every scrap of help it could get.
Hungerford went on with his own train of thought: "He being smirched, I wonder who'll play his parts henceforward."
Will Kemp had avoided temptation once. Twice, no. He said, "Why, man, had this Bacon not played with his parts, we'd worry on other things." The tireman coughed. Shakespeare would have been more annoyed at the clown had the identical thought not popped into his mind the instant before Kemp said it.
The day's play was another offering of Romeo and Juliet; they keenly felt Tom's absence, and the groundlings let them hear about it. Caleb, who played Juliet in his place, made a hash of his lines several times and wouldn't have measured up to Tom even if he hadn't.