"Ah, my love, I must go," Lope de Vega murmured regretfully.
Lucy Watkins clung to him. "Stay with me," she said. "Stay with me forever. Till I met thee, I knew not what love was."
"Thy lips are sweet," he said, and kissed her. But then he got out of the narrow bed and began to dress.
"Still, I must away. Duty calls." Duty would consist of more rehearsals for El mejor mozo de Espana.
Lope knew he would go back to his games with Catalina IbaA±ez. The more he saw of Don Alejandro de Recalde's mistress, the more games he wanted to play with her. That didn't mean he despised Lucy, but the thrill of the chase was gone.
Softly, Lucy began to weep. "Would thou gavest me all thy duty."
"I may not. What I may give thee, I do." What I don't give to Catalina, Lope thought. Lucy knew nothing of the other woman. Lope dabbed at her face with the coverlet. "Here, dry thine eyes. We'll meet again, and soon. And when we do meet, let it be with gladness."
"I always come to thee with gladness," the Englishwoman said. "But when thou goest. " She shook her head and snuffled. At last, though, she too sat up and reached for the clothes she'd so carelessly let fall to the floor a little while earlier.
By then, Lope was pulling on his boots. He'd had plenty of practice dressing in a hurry. He didn't urge Lucy to move faster. Better-more discreet-if they weren't seen coming down the stairs together from the rooms above this alehouse. He kissed her again. "Think of me whilst we are parted, that the time until we meet again might seem the shorter."
Even as he tasted her tears on his lips, she shook her head. "Always it is an age, an eternity. Never knew I time crawled so slow."
He had no answer for that, or none that would make her happy. That being so, he slipped out of the cramped little room without another word. Before long, Lucy would come forth, too. What else could she do, after all? The stairs were uneven and rickety. He stepped carefully on them, and used care of a different sort going out through the throng of Englishmen drinking below. He walked very erect, hand on the hilt of his rapier, as if eager for one of them to challenge him. Because he looked so ready, none did.
Behind him, one of them asked, "What doth the don here?"
"What doth he? Why, his doxy," a drawer answered, and masculine laughter rose from the crowd. De Vega ignored it. The server wasn't even wrong, or not very wrong, though Lucy Watkins was no whore.
She'd fallen in love with Lope as he'd fallen in love with her. If she hadn't, he would have lost interest in her right away. Getting to a woman's secret place was easy. Getting to her heart was harder, and mattered more.
His own heart leaped when he began directing Catalina IbaA±ez, explaining to her just exactly how she as Isabella was falling in love with the soldier playing Ferdinand of Aragon. And if you as yourself happen to fall in love with me as I think I'm falling in love with you. Lope thought. He intended to give Catalina all the help he could along those lines.
No matter what he intended, though, he had to restrain himself for the time being. "Don Alejandro, darling!" Catalina Ibanez squealed when a handsome, tawny-bearded fellow strutted into the courtyard where Lope was putting his mostly ragtag company through its paces. "You did come to see me rehearse!"
"I told you I would," Don Alejandro de Recalde replied, bowing to her. "I keep my word." He nodded to Lope. "You are the playwright, senor?"
"At your service, your Excellency," Lope said, with a bow of his own. At your mistress' service.
Especially at your mistress' service.
If the nobleman knew what was in de Vega's mind, he gave no sign of it. With another friendly nod, he said, "I've been listening to Catalina practicing her lines these past few days, and I have to tell you I'm impressed. I heard a good many dreary comedies in Madrid that couldn't come close to what you're doing here in this godforsaken wilderness."
Slightly dazed, Lope murmured, "You're far too kind, your Excellency." He scratched his head. He wasn't impervious to guilt. Here was this fellow praising his work, and he wanted to sleep with the man's mistress? He took another look at Catalina IbaA±ez, at her sparking eyes, the delicate arch of her nose, her red lips and white teeth, the sweetly curved figure her brocaded dress displayed. Well, as a matter of fact, yes, Lope thought. The game is worth the candle.
"Do I hear you write plays in English as well as Spanish?" Don Alejandro asked.
"No, sir, that is not so. I speak English, but I have never tried to write it," de Vega answered. "I am working with SeA±or Shakespeare, though, on his play about his Most Catholic Majesty. The Englishman has even written a small part for me into his King Philip. That may be what you heard."
"Yes, it could be," de Recalde agreed, still friendly and polite. "Would you do me the honor of letting me see what you have here so far?"
Lope didn't really want to do that. The production was still ragged, and no one knew it better than he.
But he saw no way to refuse a nobleman's request: however polite it sounded, it was really more a nobleman's order. He did feel he could warn de Recalde: "It won't be the show you'd see in a few more days."
"Of course. Of course." Don Alejandro waved aside the objection. "But I do want to see how my sweetheart's lines fit in with everybody else's."
He gazed fondly at Catalina IbaA±ez. Lope would have sold his soul for the look she sent the nobleman in return. But then she turned one equally warm on him, as she said, "He's given me such lovely words to use."
"He certainly has," Don Alejandro agreed. Because of his wealth and good looks, was he too complacent to believe Catalina might be interested in a man who had little to offer but words? If he was that complacent, did he have reason to be so?
I hope not, Lope thought. Aloud, he said, "Take your places, everyone! We're going to start from the beginning for his Excellency. Madre de Dios! Somebody kick Diego and wake him up."
Diego rose with a yelp. "What was that for?" he demanded indignantly. "I wasn't asleep. I was only resting my eyes."
Arguing with him was more trouble than it was worth. De Vega didn't try. He just said, "No time for rest now, lazybones. We're going to take it from the top for Don Alejandro, so he can see what we've been up to."
"Ah, senor, since when have you wanted anybody knowing what you're up to?" Diego murmured, his eyes sliding towards Catalina IbaA±ez. Lope coughed and spluttered. Diego might make a miserable excuse for a servant, but that didn't mean he didn't know the man he served so badly. Instead of looking at Catalina himself, Lope glanced toward Alejandro de Recalde. The nobleman, fortunately, hadn't paid any attention to Diego.
"Places! Places!" Lope shouted, submerging would-be lover so playwright and director could come forth. Being all those people at once, he sometimes felt very crowded inside. Were other people also so complex? When he thought of Diego, he had his doubts. When he thought of Christopher Marlowe. I won't think of Marlowe, he told himself. He's gone, and I don't have to worry about seizing him any more. But oh, by God, how I'll miss his poetry.
De Vega's own poetry poured forth from his amateur company
He screamed, cajoled, prompted, and kept looking at Don Alejandro. Catalina's keeper plainly enjoyed El mejor mozo de EspaA±a. He laughed in all the right places, and clapped loud enough to seem a bigger audience than he was. He didn't applaud only his mistress, either, which proved him a gentleman.