Shakespeare started to go after him, then stopped, muttering a curse. What good would it do? None.
Less than none, probably. Shakespeare didn't believe Marlowe despised his country, as he said he did.
He was all pose, all outrageousness, all shock. But force him to it and he might decide he had to act on his pose. Better to leave him alone and hope he came to his senses on his own.
Better he had not left them, Shakespeare thought, but then, Use every man after his desert, and who should 'scape whipping? That cheery notion uppermost in his mind, he trudged on down towards Bishopsgate.
Enrique stretched out an imploring hand to Lope de Vega. "Senior Lieutenant, you must let me know when you are to play Juan de IdiA?quez on the English stage," Baltasar GuzmA?n's man said. "I will come to see you, though I still know less of the language than I should."
"I'll be glad to see you," de Vega said. "I fear it won't be long."
"I fear the same. Every ship from Spain brings worse word of his Most Catholic Majesty." Enrique crossed himself.
So did Lope. For all he knew, King Philip might already have died. Strange to think he would be in his grave back in Spain while here in England, till news of his death arrived, he still ruled. A play could make something of those twists of time and knowledge, Lope thought. He wondered how he might shape it.
"God protect the new King when his day comes" Enrique said.
Lope nodded. "Yes. God protect him indeed."
He and Enrique shared a glance. They both knew Philip III was not half, was not a quarter, of the man Philip II had been. Neither of them could say such a thing, but saying and knowing were far from the same. Lope feared for Spain in the reign of Philip II's son. He couldn't say that, either. He could pray.
He'd done a lot of praying lately.
Or he could try to put his worries out of his mind. He bowed to Enrique almost as respectfully as he would have to Captain GuzmA?n, then said, " Hasta luego. I'm off to Bishopsgate."
Enrique smiled. "Good luck with your new lady friend, Senior Lieutenant."
What a pity she is only a friend, Lope thought, and then, Well, if God is on my side, I may yet make her more. To Enrique, he said only, "Thank you very much," and hurried out of the barracks in the heart of London.
But his little chat with Captain Guzman's servant delayed him just enough so that, as he was coming out, he nearly bumped into Walter Strawberry, who was coming in. He couldn't escape the man, no matter how much he wanted to. With such grace as he could muster, he smiled and said, "Give you good day, Constable Strawberry."
"God give you good morrow as well, Lieutenant," Strawberry replied. "I have heard a thing passing strange, strange as any I have seen, the which, methought, I should bring to your honor's orifice."
"Say on," de Vega urged, hoping the Englishman would come to the point-if he had a point-and let him get on his way up to see Cicely Sellis.
In his own fashion, Walter Strawberry did: "Dame Tumor hath it, sir, that Christopher Marlowe, otherwise styling himself one Karl Tuesday, is returned to London and making himself unbeknownst hereabouts."
Lope stared. That was news-if true. "How know you this? Have you seen him?"
"As I told you, not with mine own ears," the constable answered. "But I have much attestation thereto, from certain of them that share his advice."
"His advice?" De Vega frowned, wondering what Strawberry was trying to say. Suddenly, a light dawned. "Mean you-?"
"I mean what I say, and not a word of it," Strawberry declared. "He hath the advice of Gomorrah, wherefrom is he also tumorously said to suffer from the malediction which hight gomorrhea, or peradventure from the French pox."
That held enough tangles to hide a swarm of foxes from the hounds, but Lope ruthlessly cut through them:
"You have it from catamites and sodomites that Marlowe is returned to London?" He didn't know whether Marlowe was diseased, nor much care. That wasn't his worry, not now.
And Walter Strawberry nodded. "Said I not so?"
"One never knows," Lope murmured. He clapped the English constable on the shoulder. "You have done me a service to bring this word hither. Believe you me, sir, if Marlowe be in this city, we shall run him to earth. And now, I pray you, forgive, for I must away." He pushed past Strawberry and out into St.
Swithin's Lane.
"But-" Strawberry called after him. He heard no more, for he was hurrying up the street, on his way to Bishopsgate at last. His rapier slapped against his thigh at every step.
His thoughts whirled. How could Marlowe have come back to London when he'd gone to sea? Why would he have come back? Knowing Marlowe fairly well, Lope made his own guess about that.
Something was stirring, and the Englishman wanted to see it, whatever it was. Marlowe could no more stay away from trouble than bees from flowering clover. What sort of trouble? de Vega wondered. One thing immediately sprang to mind: treason.
This means more questions for Shakespeare, Lope thought unhappily. If I find him at the lodging-house, I'll ask them now.
But the old woman who ran the place shook her head when he asked if Shakespeare was there. "Surely you must know, sir, he is gone up to the Theatre, for to earn the bite wherewith his rent- my rent-to pay," she said nervously.
Lope thought about going up to Shoreditch straightaway, but decided it would keep. He had no proof Shakespeare knew anything of Marlowe's return. For that matter, he had no proof Marlowe had returned. De Vega hoped Walter Strawberry was wrong, both for Marlowe's sake and because that would mean less trouble lay ahead.
When he knocked on Cicely Sellis' door, she opened it at once. But when she saw him standing there, she started a little, or more than a little. "Oh. Master Lope. I looked for. another."
"For Christopher Marlowe?" de Vega rapped out, suddenly suspicious of everyone around him.
But the cunning woman shook her head. "I know him not," she said. If she was acting, she proved how fond and foolish England's ban on actresses was. "Why are you come here?"
"To speak with thee," Lope said, seizing the opportunity.
Her mouth narrowed in exasperation. "Come you in, then," she said, "but only for a moment, mind."
Though she must have heard him use the intimate pronoun, she didn't follow suit.
As soon as Lope stepped inside, he realized she'd been waiting for a client. Astrological symbols were scrawled on the wall in charcoal, a circle inscribed on the rammed-earth floor. Tall candles burned to either side of the circle. Within it, Mommet scratched behind one ear to rout out a flea, then yawned at the Spaniard, showing needle teeth. It was de Vega's turn to say, "Oh," as light dawned, and then,
"You'd tell a fortune." He dropped thou himself.
"Ay, and for a good price, too, of the which stand I in need," Cicely Sellis said. "Say what you would and then, I pray you, away. The bird comes anon."
And you don't want a Spaniard about to frighten him off, whoever he is, de Vega thought. Well, fair enough. Better trusting her intentions, he sighed dramatically and tried again: "I'd speak to thee of love."
Her smile showed more annoyance than amusement. "I tell you, sir, I've no time for't now. Speak me fair another day, an't please you, and who knows? Haply I will hear you."
"Haply?" he said, less than delighted at the hedge.
But Cicely Sellis nodded. "Haply," she repeated, her voice firm. "Would you have me promise more than I may give?"
"By my troth, I'd kiss thee with a most constant heart," Lope said.