Lope hadn't been asking questions along the wharfs for very long before a sheriff came up to question him. The fellow wore a leather tunic over his doublet to keep it clean, a black felt hat with a twisted hatband, slops, hose dyed dark blue with woad, and sturdy shoes. The staff of office he carried could double as a formidable club. He introduced himself as Peter Norris.
After Lope explained whom he sought, and why, Norris shrugged and said, "I fear me you'll not lay hands on him, sir: he's surely fled. These past two days, we've had a carrack put to sea bound for Copenhagen, a galleon bound for Hamburg, and some smaller ship-I misremember of what sort-bound for Calais. An he had the silver for to buy his passage, he'd be aboard one or another of 'em."
"I fear me you have reason, Sheriff," Lope said. No, he wasn't altogether sorry, however much he tried to keep that to himself.
"It sorrows me he hath escaped you. A bugger's naught but gallows-fruit," Norris said. "And you have come from London on a bootless errand, which sorrows me as well."
He sounded as if he meant it. Lope wondered if he would have seemed so friendly had the chase been for a traitor rather than a sodomite. The Spaniard had his doubts, but didn't have to test them. this time. He said, "For your kindness, sir, may I stand you to a stoup of wine?"
Norris touched the brim of his hat. "Gramercy, Don Lope. Eleanor Bull's ordinary, close by in Deptford Strand, hath a fine Candia malmsey."
The ordinary proved a pleasant place in other ways as well. It had a garden behind it that would prove more enjoyable when the plants came into full leaf. The proprietress showed Sheriff Norris, Lope, and his soldiers into a room with a bed, a long table, and a bench next to the table. De Vega and the Englishmen sat side by side. The Spanish soldiers sprawled here, there, and everywhere.
As Norris had said, Eleanor Bull's malmsey was excellent. Sipping the sweet, strong wine, Lope asked,
"Can you find for me the names of the ships wherein Marlowe might have fled?"
"Certes. I'll send 'em in a letter," Peter Norris said. Lope nodded. Maybe the sheriff would, maybe he wouldn't. Either way, de Vega had enough for a report that would satisfy his own superiors. Norris hesitated, then asked, "This Marlowe. Seek you the poet of that name?"
" 'Tis the very man, I fear me," Lope replied.
"Pity," Norris said. "By my halidom, sir, his art surpasseth even Will Shakespeare's."
"Think you so?" Lope said. "I believe you are mistook, and right gladly will I tell you why." He and Sheriff Norris spent the next couple of hours arguing about the theatre. He hadn't expected to be able to mix business and pleasure so, and was sorry when at last he did have to go back to London.
Shakespeare had never imagined that one day he might actually want to find Nicholas Skeres, but he did. Skeres had a way of appearing out of thin air, most often when he was least welcome, and throwing Shakespeare's days, if not his life, into confusion. Now Shakespeare found himself looking for the smooth-talking go-between whenever he went outside, looking for him and not seeing him.
Skeres found him one day when spring at last began to look as if it were more than a date in the almanac, a day when the sun shone warm and the air began to smell green, a day when redbreasts and linnets and chaffinches sang. He fell into stride beside Shakespeare as the poet made his way up towards Bishopsgate. "Give you good morrow, Master Will," he said.
"And you, Master Nick," Shakespeare told him. "I had hoped we might meet."
"Time is ripe." Skeres didn't explain how he knew it was, or why he thought so. Shakespeare almost asked him, but in the end held back. Skeres' answer would either be evasive or an outright lie. Smiling, the devious little man went on, "All's well with you, sir?"
"Well enough, and my thanks for asking." Shakespeare looked about. If Skeres could appear from nowhere, a Spanish spy might do the same. That being so, the poet named no names: "How fares your principal?"
"Not so well. He fails, and knows himself to fail." The corners of Nick Skeres' mouth turned down.
"Despite his brave spirit, 'tis hard, sore hard-and as hard for his son, who shall inherit the family business when God's will be done." He too was careful of the words he spoke where anyone might hear.
"Sore hard indeed," Shakespeare said. He had seen for himself in the house close by the Spanish barracks that the shadow of death lay over Sir William Cecil. That formidable intellect, that indomitable will-now trapped in a body ever less able to meet the demands they made on it? Shakespeare shivered as if a black cat had darted across the street in front of him. When my time comes, Lord, by Thy mercy let it come quickly. Till meeting Lord Burghley, he'd never thought to make such a prayer. But dying by inches, knowing each inch lost was lost forever. He shook his head. He feared death less than dying.
And well you might, bethinking yourself of the death the Spaniards or the Inquisition would give you. All at once, he wanted to do as Marlowe had done, to take ship and flee out of England. I would be safe in foreign parts, with no dons nor inquisitors to dog me. Speaking with Nick Skeres brought home the danger he faced.
That danger would only get worse after William Cecil died, too. Crookbacked Robert was naturally a creature of the shadows, and had thrived for years in the enormous shadow his great father cast. Once that shadow vanished, could Robert Cecil carry on in full light of day? He would have to try, but it wouldn't be easy for him.
"What seek you of me?" Skeres asked.
"Know your masters that my commission for them is complete?" Shakespeare asked in return.
Nicholas Skeres nodded. "Yes. They know. 'Twas on that account they sent me to you. I ask again: what need you of them, or of me?"
"The names of certain men," Shakespeare said, and explained why.
"Ah." Skeres gave him another nod. "You may rely on them, and on me." He hurried away, and soon vanished into the crowd. Shakespeare went on towards Bishopsgate. He knew he could rely on the Cecils; they would do all they could for him. Relying on Nick Skeres? Shakespeare shook his head at the absurdity of the notion and kept on walking.
At the Theatre that day, Lord Westmorland's Men offered The Cobbler's Holiday, a comedy by Thomas Dekker. It was a pleasant enough piece of work, even if the plot showed a few holes. Most of the time, Shakespeare-a good cobbler of dramas himself-would have patched those holes, or found ways for Dekker to do it himself, before the play reached the stage. He hadn't had the chance here, not when he was busy with two of his own.
It might have gone off well enough even so. Such plays often did. Good jests (even more to the point, frequent jests) and spritely staging hid flaws that would have been obvious on reading the script.
Not this time. Among the groundlings were a dozen or more Oxford undergraduates, come to London on some business of their own and taking in a play before or after it. The university trained them to pick things to pieces. They jeered every flaw they found and, as undergraduates were wont to do, went from jeering flaws to jeering players. Even by the rough standards groundlings set, they were loud and obnoxious.
Richard Burbage, who played the cobbler, went on with his role as if the Oxonians did not exist. Will Kemp, ideally cast in the role of the title character's blundering, befuddled friend, had a thinner skin.
Shakespeare tried to calm him when he retreated to the tiring room during a scene in which he didn't appear: "This too shall pass away."
"May the lot of them pass away," the clown growled, "and be buried unshriven."
"Tomorrow they'll be gone," Shakespeare said. "Never do they linger."